IT directors on the sharp end of delivering business-to-business web services know that the existing security standards and architectures cannot deliver the sort of systems we need to make the most of the opportunities that lie ahead.

Although it is possible to enforce common products and standards within an organisation, the days when that was sufficient have long since past.

The future, for all organisations, in both the private and public sectors, involves breaking down barriers between organisations and opening up once closed systems to partners.

Users realise that today's piecemeal approach to IT security and the slow progress of supplier-led security standards bodies are a barrier to that future.

That is why the efforts of some of the UK's leading IT directors to lay out a strategic approach to defining standards and tools that suppliers must deliver are so important.

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