Consumer Technology invading corporate computing

The Economist has an interesting article on the spread of consumer technology in the corporate workplace.

It seems the IT department at Arizona State University decided to shift all 65,000 student accounts to Google Gmail, a free web-based email service. It is part of the bundle called "Google Apps for Your Domain" that also includes instant messenging (IM) and a web-based calendar.

According to Dave Girouard, the boss of Google's small but growing enterprise division, “tens of thousands” of organisations have already signed up to use Google's web-based tools in place of traditional in-house e-mail systems and other software.

ASU's decision is ahead of other IT organisations who tend to be sceptical of consumer technologies and often ban them outright. Employees, in return, tend to ignore their IT departments.

You can read more off the Economist web site.

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I would figure that this type of service would be beneifical to educational institutions, small and medium sized businesses. I really doubt that any one in the corporate Wall Street industry to take up Google's free service because of SEC rules and regulations and other compliance requirements.

Microsoft Outlook, Live Meeting, Lotus Notes will remain the backbone of most major financial companies. I am sure some of Google services will be used, but not exclusively. For instant messenging, we must keep records of conversations of users utilising AOL, MSN, and Yahoo Messenger. Hmm, I do not know if Google Talk is compatible yet.

But still, would you want all of your stuff to be under the control of Google?