"The way that we have done ICT in the 20th century is not the way we need to do it for the 21st century," Bradlow told attendees at a lunch for the American Chamber of Commerce in Australia.

Businesses risked falling prey to forthcoming "disruptive" technologies without doing so, such as increases in telecommuting, changes in videoconferencing technology and context-sensitive computing.

Instead, he urged businesses to outsource those ICT functions considered core, either specialist organisations or Cloud operators where possible.

"We have to run security for organisations," Bradlow said. "We have an operational security group who specialise in this type of thing of 300 to 400 people and it's very hard for organisations to replicate that.

"But we can serve people that out of our Clouds with the same capability at a margin, which makes it much more cost-effective for the organisation you're securing."