Virtualisation, green data centres, high-density server blades, Microsoft Server 2007, 10Gb networks, 3.5G, high-speed wireless. What a list. What a cost. Why no benefits?

Pick a word for the last five years and for many, that word is consolidation. computer power moving to (expensive) data centres, even more (expensive) software upgrades. Companies merging, even our banks are joining up with each other.

Yet when you cut through the hype and marketing-speak, there is little or nothing to show for it in terms of real business benefit or gain. Its all been a waste of time and resources. Why is that?

Because all we’ve done is add complexity. Few CIOs know how their business operates. IT can’t work like this, IT must change. IT should not be a cost, or a long-term investment. Time to get angry and get this useless, fat monkey off your back.

The Emperor’s New Clothes – don’t fit and the colour doesn’t suit you

This month, Windows 7 comes out. The latest in a long line of promised upgrades that will transform your business. You’ll be more competitive, your staff so much more productive, why even your offices will look better.

What a load of rubbish. Surely, by now you don’t still honestly believe this, do you?

How many more fat cheques will you write, how many more purchase orders will you authorise, how much more upheaval and unhappy meetings with department managers who still can’t send out an invoice on time or print that report they need until you finally say Enough is enough.

Your choice. The blue pill to stay as you are or the red to change…

But this is just the way it is, this is what you always do. This is what happens each year. You go to the board they grumble at you but they pay out. You always swallow the blue pill.

And this is why the board hates IT people. They promise but never, ever deliver.

But this time, things could be very different. This times things could actually work, improve, carry the business forward. You can keep that cheque book in your drawer. Because today you actually have a choice. An option that you know what, could just work better. Today, you could decide to try the red pill.

Living in a shrink-wrapped box

Stop looking at that Microsoft software box containing your business and holding it back. Think about where you really want your business to move to, what you want it to achieve. Don’t just assume that another upgrade like last time will do that, because it won’t.

Make this change one for the better. Stop compromising on your goals. Fix that deadline, say it must work. Shout it loud and watch the salesman go pale. He knows he can’t make that happen. Nor can the career techy you’ve kept in pizza for the last ten years.

The answer lies outside your organisation. Not in your basement server room, or in that super-cooled, high energy data centre that cost more than last year’s marketing budget. The answer lies in the Cloud.

Stop listening to the old school, they have nothing left to teach you that you want to learn. Talk to someone new, someone who’s not about to rip you off and wants to help you grow. And that new Windows 7?

Leave it in the box, where it belongs.