For many people this is a momentous week.

If you are a smoker, you will already be discovering the joys of standing in the rain outside your office, favourite pub or restaurant.

If you are an IT manager – smoker or otherwise – a more significant occasion will have been the passing into law of the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (Weee) directive. All used hardware now has to be disposed of environmentally. If you have not put in place a recycling programme for PCs, monitors and other old kit, it is now time to do so.

Given the contribution that technology makes to carbon emissions – about two per cent of the world’s total, according to analyst Gartner – this is a sensible and timely piece of legislation, and one that will hopefully act as a catalyst for IT departments to put in place a wider green computing strategy.

But if you read the news on the internet or in the national papers, you would think there is only one thing that matters this week in the technology world: the Apple iPhone is now on sale.

I can quite happily engage in conversation about the whys and wherefores of smoking in public. I can get quite passionate about the benefits of green computing and the reasons you should donate your old PCs to charities such as Computer Aid for re-use in developing countries. I suppose I should be excited about the iPhone.

But frankly, the whole thing leaves me cold.

I just don’t get the hype on this one. A combined MP3 player and smartphone? Hardly a first. A great new user-friendly interface? I’ve not heard many BlackBerry users complaining. The latest trendy gadget? At $500 each and a minimum of $60 per month for a network contract, you would have to be blinded by Apple fervour to think so. And no 3G, no third-party applications, and not available yet outside the US.

It is great, of course, that IT has such a buzz about it. The convergence of consumer-led technology and business technology is gaining pace and will be a significant driver of change in the IT department in the coming years.

But does an overpriced, overhyped fancy phone – even if it does come from the only IT supplier to be seen as a fashion icon – help or hinder that progress?

The reason technology is crossing over so rapidly into the consumer world is because it has stripped out the unnecessary geeky functions and become a tool that genuinely helps to improve people’s lives. If suppliers over-exploit that breakthrough, then be prepared for the backlash to surely follow.

Read my blog at: http://editor.computing.co.uk