Georgias state IT contracting policy is perhaps the worst Ive ever heard of. They just gave the whole thing away to two companies: Verizon and IBM. This is the trend that got the federal government in trouble with Healthcare.gov. Basically it goes like this: Contracting out things, and writing RFPs is really hard. So we should just contract out *one big thing* and then we wont have to write so many RFPs. Well save a whole bunch of time and money not having to go through that painful process So they sign these huge contracts to avoid having to do the work of bidding every little single thing out into a long convoluted process. This is why CGI Federal got Healthcaredotgov, and were able to win that contract in 2007 (before the ACA passed!) and also why they had an incentive to lobby on its passage in 2009. Theyd already won the giant contract from HHS. I have a customer right now who wants me to sign a 3 year contract with them so that they dont have to continue to bid out the work. Despite me telling them that 18 months from now, my software will likely cost half as much, they dont seem to care, because: 1. its not their money, and 2. its easier to just do it now. And they look at me like Im a crazy person for trying to talk them out of it. But what happens when you do that? Technologys success in the private sector is based upon an individual companys ability to innovate in all of its processes. But these contracting practices remove that companys incentive to do so by making it so that they dont have to compete, and you and I -- the end user -- end up with a sub-par product as a result. I as a business owner set myself up for a long-term failure because well get fat and lazy and just become one of the bad guys. Weve got to start doing better at this. As conservatives, you should care about this because its just wasteful. Theres a sequesters worth of wasted money in the federal IT budget, and probably a NASAs worth of wasted money amongst the states. Plus, you have the added affect of being able to shrink government through the more effective use of technology. The amount of waste should make your blood boil. As liberals you should care about this because theres not a single large government program on the table without an IT component to it. Healthcare saw 800 million dollars of waste associated with it. Immigration? Weve spent over a billion dollars trying to put the forms online to no avail. You want an IT system that companies have to use for stuff like Cap&Trade?Good luck. And good luck regulating financial markets of high frequency algorithmic trading when it takes 18 months to buy last years computer for three times the price. Anyhow. Its frustrating how little people understand about this, and how completely catastrophic its going to be if it doesnt get fixed. There is a better way.
Posted on: Thu, 07 Aug 2014 14:02:58 +0000
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