Today'sBudgetcontained little that will have
an immediate impact on IT departments but in the longer term
fallout from it could hit software research and push up the cost of
datacentres.
Andy Lawrence, research director at analyst house 451 group,
said the chancellor's plans to make
new non-domestic buildings zero-carbon from 2019 could present
major challenges for businesses with large datacentres.
"Measuring the carbon footprint of building is very difficult,"
Lawrence said. "For datacentres, it would be many times more
difficult to achieve carbon neutrality than for an office. The
notion of achieving carbon neutrality in the datacentre is almost
impossible."
The chancellor, Alistair Darling, introduced tax breaks for
research and development, including software. But David O'Keeffe,
head of research and development at KPMG, warned that HMRC plans to
tax research that resulted in a product could destroy the
benefits.
"In manufacturing pre-production trials often result in a
saleable product," O'Keeffe said. "Almost any sizable business runs
software research and development. But there is a move by the HMRC
to tax anything that develops into a product."
Such a move could affect financial institutes running large
software development operations, he said.
Elsewhere IT professionals reacted to the Budget with
disappointment.
Experts Computer Weekly spoke to were disappointed at the
failure to address IT security concerns, particularly given the
highly publicised loss of CDs from HMRC and the growth in
identity fraud.
David Roberts, chief executive of The Corporate IT Forum, said,
"We are disappointed that the chancellor did not announce any
further Home Office funding for fighting electronic forms of
crime.
"The government must invest more in education to help the public
protect themselves against high-tech criminals and, crucially,
bring back a well resourced, highly skilled centralised unit for
the investigation of all forms of electronic crime. There was one
in the form of the
NHTCU until the government took it away. The lack of a
centralised e-crime unit puts all computer users at risk."
One piece of good news for IT directors was training. Eurim
secretary general
Philip Virgo praised the government's plans for adult training.
"This is technician-level training and reskilling in 20 years," he
said in his blog.
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