CIO Forum: Compliance and regulation forcing change

Compliance and regulatory requirements are forcing a dramatic change in the way businesses store and use information, according to Autonomy MD and CEO Mike Lynch.

Speaking at the silicon.com CIO Forum this morning, Lynch said the rapidly increasing amount of unstructured data in various formats such as text, audio and video is causing headaches for CIOs.

"We are seeing large companies making fundamental decisions about how to handle unstructured information. Information is rapidly becoming a lot more than what's in the tables of a database," he said. "What's interesting is the interplay of technology and the legal world - Sarbanes Oxley, Basel II, and litigation."

Lynch said that not being able to find the information requested by regulators or vital to a court case over something like a contract dispute is not an excuse and could lead to the case being lost.

"The fact the system can't do it is no longer a defence. If a crime was committed you have to deliver the evidence," he said.

Advances and mass-market acceptance of new consumer technologies has also raised the bar for what people expect a business to be able to do with IT.

"There is a very strong connection between consumer technology and the level of expectation in an enterprise. With Wi-Fi I can go home and sit in my bed and send email. If I can't do that at work I'm going to ask questions."

Lynch also urged businesses to innovate and break the traditional cycle of IT trends and fashions.

"Technology is crucial and it is changing things. You can't keep doing the same thing as last year next year," he said. "Don't get caught up in the fashion of the time, the latest three letter acronym and the politically correct debate about does innovation matter, ROI and is it about the users. If you get a dogma about one of them you are missing the other two tricks."