The future ends at the firewall
Be warned: for many office workers, life in the internet age is about to get much more frustrating.
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New services from companies such as Google and Skype and the spread of domestic broadband access have created a new generation of digitally aware consumers. Having access to free video conferencing, or being able to examine the world in exquisite detail on a programme such as Google Earth, has awakened home computer users to the expanding possibilities of life on the web.
When they get to work, however, these same computer users are starting to find that many of the digital goodies they have come to expect are out of reach. That is more than just a frustration for individual workers: as more technology innovation shifts to the web, it could slow the pace at which many new technologies are adopted and prevent companies from reaping the full productivity benefits.
The new reliance on personal experimentation on the internet as a way to spread new technology at work was summed up recently by Ray Ozzie, chief technical officer at Microsoft. In a landmark memo to Microsoft staff, intended to accelerate the software company's shift to the web, he outlined a new approach to technology adoption that has little to do with the efforts of the corporate IT department.
"[Technology] products are now discovered through a combination of blogs, search keyword-based advertising, online product marketing and word of mouth," he wrote. "This is not just true of consumer products: even enterprise products now more often than not enter an organisation through the internet-based research and trial of a business unit that understands a product's value."
Yet just as a new wave of internet-based technology breaks, many workers are no longer being given a chance to try it out in this way. Slow corporate networks, the fear of exposure to computer viruses and concerns about the escalating costs of maintaining large numbers of PCs have led many companies instead to clamp down on personal experimentation.
"In a lot of companies, the desktop is locked down - only the IT department has access to it," says Dave Girouard, general manager of Google's enterprise division. "There's no question that consumer technology is racing ahead at a breakneck pace. Enterprise technology kind of slogs along; the adoption rates are much slower."
The chasm that is starting to open between the experience of using computers at home and in the office is based on two things. One is the availability of bandwidth: most companies cannot afford to meet the soaring expectations of their workers. The other is the ability to try out new software applications and services that live on the web.
When it comes to bandwidth, even the technology professionals are starting to feel the frustration. John Vogt-Nilsen, who runs the communications network at Orbital Sciences, a US maker of rockets, says he has an internet connection at home that runs at 10 megabits per second; by comparison, the capacity of the outbound internet connection for his company's 1,800 employees amounts to only 6 mbps.
As more people experience high bandwidth at home, the level of frustration at the office will rise, he predicts. "There is going to be a huge phenomenon of people demanding bandwidth [at work]: I can't satisfy that," he says.
Data-intensive internet audio and video account for much of the new craving for bandwidth, says Bobby LaRocca, director of information security for the Palm Beach school district in Florida. "Streaming radio and TV are killing our bandwidth," he says.
Blocking access to internet-based entertainment services is one way to conserve network capacity. Palm Beach, for instance, has blocked the internet radio services that were starting to consume an inordinate amount of the network, says Mr LaRocca.
But other bandwidth-hungry applications that have a more direct bearing on office or school life are also starting to proliferate. The school district has just increased the capacity of its network from 45 mbps to 256 mbps, but even an increase of that scale may not be enough to cope with the new video conferencing service that the district wants to run over its network. "It's probably going to hit [the new bandwidth], and hit it good," says Mr LaRocca.
The growing reliance on network-based applications raises a second question: how easily can workers get access to potentially productivity-enhancing technology tools that lie beyond their company's firewall?
This is more than just a mild annoyance - the rate at which office workers adopt many new technologies could be at risk.
"A lot of the innovations of the last five years have started out among rogue groups of [office] users and then become mainstream," says John Kish, chief executive officer of Wyse, which makes stripped-down desktop computers designed for use with applications that reside on the network.
Workers who try out new technologies for themselves, without the official approval of the IT department, have often proved far more adept at finding and employing services that bring direct benefits to their work.
What happens when corporate firewalls block this grassroots approach to technology adoption?
Enlightened companies are starting to loosen the controls on their workers, claims Mr Girouard at Google. "Gradually, organisations are waking up to the fact that they need to give their employees access to more productivity-enhancing technology - often that just means getting out of the way," he says.
Yet the trend in most corporate IT departments is still moving in the opposite direction. The threat from computer viruses has led most big companies to block their workers' ability to download software from the internet, restricting their access to new services.
New ways of delivering internet services are helping to limit this problem, says Mr Girouard. Using a new approach to designing internet services, known as Ajax, companies such as Google have been able to enhance the experience of using a web browser. That has meant that workers can get access to more advanced services without needing to download software on to their own machine.
However, that has not done much to liberate the average office drone suffering from technology lock-down. According to Mr Kish at Wyse, this is simply the new reality of office life. Deciding for yourself what technology would help you work more effectively may seem appealing, but it no longer fits with the need to control IT more closely. "It is being outweighed by the realities in front of the business," he says.
The message, for today's increasingly frustrated office workers: just get used to it.
企业防火墙挡住未来？
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注意：对于许多办公室员工来说，互联网时代的生活将变得更加令人沮丧。
Google和Skype等公司提供的新服务以及家庭宽带的普及，带来了新一代懂得数字技术的消费者。人们可以免费进行视频会商，或者利用Google Earth等工具俯瞰地球，这些技术让家庭电脑用户领略日趋广阔的web新天地。
然而，当这些电脑用户走进办公室时，他们开始发现很多诱人的数字技术变得可望而不可及。不仅是员工个人感到沮丧：随着更多的技术创新转移到web，企业采纳新技术的速度可能会放慢，使其不能充分享用生产率提高所带来的好处。
微软公司(Microsoft)首席技术官雷?奥齐(Ray Ozzie)最近总结了依赖个人的互联网体验，将新技术普及到工作的新做法。为了加快微软公司向web的转型，他向公司员工发出一份具有划时代意义的备忘录，描述了一种新的技术应用方法，而这种方法与公司信息科技(IT)部门的工作几乎毫不相关。
“现在，人们通过博客、关键词广告搜索、网上产品营销和口耳相传相结合的方式寻找(科技)产品，”他写道。“不仅仅是消费产品这样，现在连企业产品也时常通过互联网搜索及通过懂得该产品价值的业务部门试用的方式来进入公司。”
然而，正当新一轮互联网技术脱颖而出，许多公司员工却不再有机会利用这种方式来体验这些技术。缓慢的公司网络，对电脑感染病毒的担心，以及维护大量个人电脑的成本不断攀升，导致许多公司禁止这种个人体验行为。
“在许多公司，电脑系统都是被锁定的，只有IT部门的人员可以进入，”Google商业部门主管戴夫?格罗伍德(Dave Girouard)表示。“毫无疑问，消费技术产品发展速度惊人。企业技术则进展缓慢，其应用率低得多。”
家里和办公室使用电脑的感觉差异
在家里和在办公室使用电脑的感觉开始出现差异，原因有二。其一是宽带提供：多数公司不能满足员工与日俱增的期望。另外一点是有能力尝试web上的新应用软件和服务。
谈到宽带，甚至连科技专家们也都开始感到沮丧。美国火箭制造商轨道科学公司(Orbital Sciences)主管通信网络的约翰?沃格特-尼尔森(John Vogt-Nilsen)表示，他在家里安装了高速上网，网速为每秒10兆；但相比而言，其公司1800名员工共用的互联网连接设备的网速仅为每秒6兆。
他预期，由于越来越多的人在家使用高速宽带网络，因此在办公室出现的沮丧程度将上升。“人们要求(在工作时)使用宽带的现象将更加普遍：但我无法满足这一点。”
美国佛罗里达州棕榈滩学院区信息安全处主任博比?拉罗卡(Bobby LaRocca)称，对带宽的新增需求，很多源于数据密集型互联网音频和视频。“流媒体广播和电视正在消耗我们的带宽，”他说。
屏蔽网上娱乐服务是保障网络容量的一种方式。比如，拉罗卡称，棕榈滩屏蔽了网络广播服务，因为它们已经开始过度消耗网络流量。
但是，其它需要大带宽的应用软件数量也开始激增，而它们对办公室或学校生活具有更直接的影响。该学院区刚刚将其网络容量从每秒45兆增加到每秒256兆，但即使是这样，可能仍不足以应付该区计划通过网络运行的新型视频会议服务。“这可能会对(新的带宽)造成冲击，而且冲击颇大，”拉罗卡说。
下载软件的权限
对各种基于网络的应用软件日益增长的依赖，引发了第二个问题：对一些有可能提高生产率、但被公司防火墙排除在外的技术工具，员工们获取它们的难度大吗？
这可不是一个小问题――办公族采用新技术的速度可能受到影响。
“在过去五年里，许多创新都始于不守纪律的办公室用户群，然后才成为主流，”美国慧智公司(Wyse)首席执行官约翰?基什(John Kish)称。美国慧智公司生产为纯网络软件而设计的“精简型台式电脑”。
未获IT部门正式许可而自行尝试新技术的员工，往往在发现和使用服务方面远为熟练，这些服务可为其工作带来直接效益。
当企业防火墙阻止了这种技术应用的基层途径时，会发生什么？
Google的格罗伍德声称，一些开明的公司正开始放松对员工的控制。“企业逐渐开始认识到一个事实：他们需要为员工提供途径，以便他们获得更多可以提高生产率的技术――这往往意味着放松限制，”他说。
多数企业的做法
然而，多数企业的IT部门仍在向反方向发展。电脑病毒的威胁，促使很多大公司不许员工从网上下载软件，限制了他们获取新服务的途径。
格罗伍德表示，新的互联网服务提供方式有助于解决这个问题。通过一种名为阿贾克斯(Ajax)新方法设计网络服务，Google等公司可以丰富用户应用web浏览器的经验。这意味着员工无需下载软件，即可获得更多先进服务。
然而，这并未在很大程度上让普通办公族摆脱技术封锁的限制。慧智公司的基什称，这是办公室生活的新现实。自行决定哪种技术会提高工作效能的做法，看似更有诱惑力，但它不再适应企业对IT技术加强控制的需要。他说：“企业面对的其它现实比它更胜一筹。”
对如今越来越感觉受挫的办公室职员来说，它传递了这样的信息：学会适应。
