"The new regulations will be introduced as a direct result of
the current crisis in the financial markets, and as their scope
becomes clearer they will have a huge effect on data center
activities, said Chris McClean, an analyst at Forrester Research.
"I reckon the impact of these new regulations has the potential to
be much, much bigger than Sarbanes-Oxley," says McLean. "The push
for new regulation will be enormous. When you look at the amount of
people affected by Enron and WorldCom, it's small compared to those
affected by the current financial crisis. IT will have to be
involved in a big way.
"He believes it's likely that the purpose of many of the new
regulations will be to push for better corporate auditability.
That's because one of the problems that may well have contributed
to the financial crisis is that although banks and other financial
institutions had large amounts of information about their
businesses, they still made bad decisions because they couldn't
access the right information when they needed it.
"Essentially, they made bad decisions because they didn't have
the right technology," McClean said. The new regulations will
ensure organizations have better control over the activities
particular groups can carry out."
