Integration: It's killing us

Surveys sponsored by vendors are inherently suspect, as they're hardly likely to disclose any results that suggest their own products are inferior to the competition, over-priced or just plain rubbish.

So it's no real surprise that a recent survey of 100 local CIOs by InterSystems, who flog databases and integration platforms, found that the majority of business integration programs are running well behind schedule and will probably continue to do so unless they embrace, in the words of local MD Denis Tebbutt, "better, more innovative ways of managing and integrating data".

Hey, anyone want to buy a database or an integration platform?

Such crass commercial considerations aside, the survey did uncover some interesting details, including the fact that business integration projects are consuming, on average, 24 percent of new project spending. Since business integration largely involves tying together existing applications, in one way that seems a disturbingly large percentage. Wouldn't the cash for new projects be better spent on actual new projects?

On the other hand, given that many IT shops are only being maintenance budgets to begin with, perhaps it isn't high enough. 24 percent of zero is, after all, still zero.