20 years in IT history: Connectivity

A number of accounting scandals from leading-edge tech companies (Enron, WorldCom, and the like) led to legislation designed to remake the financial reporting practices of public companies from top to bottom. While Sox, as the act came to be known, explicitly targeted the behaviors of CEOs and CFOs, it probably changed the lives of CIOs as much or more.

PS/2, NeXT and OOPs, Netware 3 Archie, Linux, Windows Mosaic, Spam and More, Convergence The Dotcoms, Distributed Compution, XML Wireless and Y2K, Millennial Change and Angst, Blogs Sarbanes-Oxley, Virtualization, ERP Hangover Multicore Processors, The Network, The iPhone

Sox required that every act in a company's financial life be documented and that every document be auditable, forcing CIOs to supervise a massive increase in documentation and in the control of that documentation. Change management, in particular, went from something the CIO could do on his or her own in an afternoon (for reasons best known to the CIO) to an agenda item for the Change Management Committee.

The scary part is that, given how integrated IT has become with financial reporting, if a CEO or CFO were to be indicted for Sox violations, the CIO is at risk of being sucked into the same prosecution, as a coconspirator.

On the other hand, CIOs are now right at the heart of the enterprise. The bean counters used to complain that IT was all cost and no benefit. Thanks to Sox, IT can now point to a benefit the most obtuse bean counter is likely to appreciate: keeping him out of jail.