Why the digital super-highway is giving us all electronic road rage

When was the last time you bought a car, only to be told that it can only be made with three wheels? Have you ever bought a ticket to Frankfurt, only to be told mid-flight that the journey will be ending in Paris and you will have to make your own way there? Sadly, this is exactly the type of lip service that information technology businesses are continually delivering.

There is no other industry that perpetuates itself on promises that it doesn’t keep more than IT. So much so that the promises have turned into oxymorons. Remember the “paperless office”? Even the “portable computer” – weighing in at between 8lbs and 10lbs is not exactly portable.

In January 1984, it was reported in The Times that within ten years technology would allow a company financial manager to work a 30-hour week, 40% of that time at home by 1994. For all the current hype over flexible working, I don’t know a single finance director that works just over three days a week.

Perhaps even more surprising than IT lip service is that the punters not only take it, but go back for more. The latest culprits gobbling up company budgets are the Internet, electronic commerce (e-commerce) and electronic communications. True, IT these days allows us to have computerised just-in-time, automatic stock replenishment systems, but we still get e-mails that look like this:

RFC-822 Header: RECEIVED: from VNULONMTA.VNU.CO.UK by (193.128.170.129) ; 10 OCT 97 12:06:04 UT Received: by VNULONMTA.VNU.CO.UK(Lotus SMTP MTA v1.05 (274.9 11-27-1996)) id 8025652C.003CC7FC ;

While staff can play Doom across a network and marvel at the graphics, e-mails still disappear off the right-hand side of the screen and have to be copied and pasted in to a word processor document so they can be read properly. It seems those delivering business applications could learn a thing or two from the makers of video games.

More serious are the hidden costs of technology. A recent NOP study boasted that staff are wasting less time at work on personal use of the Internet.

The time employees spend surfing the Net has dropped from 20% to 13%, according to the study. However, that still means companies are contributing 13% of labour costs towards non-work related activities. And this is a wastage that is almost impossible to curb.

The image of a world where global businesses trade quicker and more efficiently with e-commerce is also disintegrating. A recent report from analysts Gartner Group says more than 80% of enterprises with global strategies will be forced to implement and manage multiple electronic systems by IT companies and competitors.

In an interview with PC Week Barbara Reilly, research director with Gartner Group, said: “There are fundamental differences between what vendors offer in the way of applications and services … We do not believe that any simple, straightforward e-commerce solutions will emerge during the next five years.”

One of Financial Director’s very wise contacts demonstrated just how ironic the situation has become when he drew the following analogy: “Imagine if we had the Internet and e-mail first, and then invented the telephone.

We’d be saying: ‘This is great. We are liberated from our keyboards and workstations and can communicate real-time, interactively, by voice!'” The point is, we are slaves to the “latest” technology and it’s time to make a run for our freedom.

But how can we? Examples of our dependence on IT are pervasive. And this reliance is such that it may prove to be the demise of many modern corporations.

For example, some technology “solutions” are now proving to be expensive liabilities for companies. Just look at the year 2000 and Emu.

The Alliance & Leicester says it will cost between #30m and #40m to make its systems year 2000-compliant. Barclays Bank has calculated the total cost of Emu compliance work at #198m. Bob Assirati of the CCTA estimated the total cost of resolving the government system’s millennium problem at around #1bn.

The cost to industry if systems collapse once the millennium bell has tolled are too horrific for most to even contemplate.

Yet critics of the IT industry – rare animals themselves – are still almost universally slated. Two of the industry’s most outspoken mavericks are BASDA’s Dennis Keeling and Taskforce 2000’s Robin Guernier. Keeling has made more than a few enemies with statements such as: “Emu is a huge problem for the IT industry to sort out, much bigger than the year 2000.

It will have a colossal impact and there isn’t a software package in the world that meets the requirements.”

Keeling also dared go on the record, saying many users are so unhappy with the year 2000 problem that they “don’t want the (IT) industry anywhere near them for years” Writing in Computing he asks the question to which many users would like an answer: “Why doesn’t the software industry concentrate on the important user requirements instead of technology hype?”.

Guernier’s mission was to raise awareness of the implications of the year 2000 crisis. That is, it was his role, until the government’s formed its new Action 2000 group last month. Guernier indicated that his independent stance may have cost him his job. “They won’t offer me the job. I’m sure they regard me as a bit of a maverick as I ask too many awkward questions,” he told Network News.

In short, not only is super digital high technology failing to deliver the basics – and top of that list is true ease of communication – there is a growing tendency for anyone who complains about this and who insists on using low-technology to be branded a 21st century Luddite.

It’s time we all adopt a healthy element of Luddite scepticism and fight back.