Where did the big SOX spend go?

Has Sarbanes-Oxley (Sox) been a damp squib for financial services technology vendors? Well, yes and no. Spending on Sox solutions has been less than originally anticipated by vendors, many of whom have spent the past three years churning out software packages designed to solve the myriad information collection and processing problems the US corporate governance legislation creates.

The truth of the matter is that financial services firms have not been purchasing the solutions en masse. The reasons for this are many. Some firms simply looked at the offerings in the market-place when they started their Sox projects two years ago and decided that they were better off developing tools in-house. "The tools that were out there at the start of the project are nowhere near as good as the tools that are out there now," says Jonathan Wyatt, director at Protiviti, a risk consulting