'IT is mostly doing its internal job competently but improving supply does not fix demand. Business leaders are still not responsible, not setting directions, not planning and not implementing.

'Only six percent of Australian boards have a director competent to consider IT matters. The global figure is not much different. Boards don't have the confidence [to deal with IT] and don't put on the right people.'

The problem is, he says, that IT projects continue to fail, and are getting worse at delivery. 'Thirty percent of projects surveyed by KPMG didn't have any objectives. Only 10 percent were unequivocal successes.

'It's not just the projects that are a problem. Operational interruption is becoming a big problem.

'ICT is fundamental to business. Fifty percent of world capital investment goes into IT and that's forecast to rise to 60 percent by 2010. So, we're wasting something like 35 percent of the world's capital expenditure.'