Here's an excerpt from a paper I'm working on. Writing the paper is giving me some new insight into why corporations are so screwed up. It's one thing to know something; it's another to think through to the root causes.
"One of the drivers for this study is the fact that many computer users now have a richer, more effective computing environment at home than at work. Many professionals now have their home PCs connected to the Internet via a broadband connection, and that connection is available at any point on their property via an 802.11b wireless network. The PCs are of modern vintage, with Windows 2000 or XP, >128 MB RAM and CPU speeds in excess of 1 Ghz. These simple components create a better, richer end user experience than anything they have at work.
This is a paradox. Why can’t corporations maintain a better computing environment than individuals, given their relatively larger budgets and expert staff? The answer is complex, but can be summarized by the following three general observations:
- Corporations, particularly corporations who have chosen to outsource their IT functions, view user computing as an expense to be minimized. They see no incentive to create a richer “experience” for end users, and only do so when the cost of supporting a “grade B” infrastructure exceeds the cost of upgrades.
- Corporations design end user computing for the least common denominator. That is, the design point is not the most knowledgeable or sophisticated employees, but is the low-average employee who must be supported. Since every CIO has bought into the economy of scale argument (standardization of all infrastructure), the standard is set as low as possible.
- Corporations purchase capital assets, including IT infrastructure, assuming at least a three year useful life. More likely, it will be 4-5 years before many components in the end user computing chain are upgraded. Compare this with the rate of change in PCs and peripherals: PC performance has doubled every year lately, as has the capability/cost of major peripherals (printers, disks, network components). So in many situations, the corporate environment is 3-4 performance generations behind what users can buy at any given moment. To even unsophisticated users, this is a very noticeable gap.
Given this, are computer users in corporations doomed to a sub-standard set of tools? Perhaps not – but it will require a change in the way end user computing services are procured and managed."
7:39:22 PM 
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