No surprise, I suppose, that the great white hope of May 2003 failed the IT business, and that the Sun/Oracle bid to replace Microsoft Exchange Server with a combination of Oracle Collaboration Suite and Sun’s StarOffice is long forgotten. Are we surprised, instead, to find that training is set to solve all our problems again?

The recent government plan to give workers the right to training brings back loud echoes from the past. Back in 2001, it was the closure of the Individual Learning Account (ILA) that left the authorities suddenly vulnerable to accusations of neglect.

Then, they came up with a corporate-based alternative: the National Skills Strategy, which “could provide incentives for employers to engage in training programmes, including IT education”.

When it comes to attempts to break the hegemony of Microsoft, nobody has been quite as effective as Redmond itself. Attacks on Exchange have been as effective as the wolf huffing and puffing at the house of bricks. As technology analyst Simon Moores said in 2003: “I just can’t see people willingly moving… even trying to find skilled Lotus Notes people is incredibly difficult.”

By contrast, the release of Vista has prompted many corporates to start experimenting with different desktop systems. No, there really isn’t any danger of Apple Macs replacing PCs on corporate desktops, but the smell of burning rubber from underneath the engine of the Wintel machine can’t be ignored, and most of that smoke has been caused by complacency at the top of Microsoft.

Looking back on the training issue, the biggest consequence of the closure of the ILAs was a rapid move from training to outsourcing – almost exactly the opposite effect from that which was intended by the government. And is there any sign that the current initiative will change the reluctance of employers to spend money on making their staff worth more to rival employers?

Really, the question implies its own answer.