Change Comes to Government IT

March 24th, 2009 by Julia Lim

We went into FOSE this year with some assumptions about how the change in administration and the economic crisis were affecting government IT. Based on the survey we conducted and conversations with the federal IT workers, we were right and wrong.

Ask any government worker and they’ll tell you that an administration change, especially a political party change, in the White House means a whole new set of upper management with their own agendas that get pushed from the top down. We’ve already seen the focus on cybersecurity; the government’s in the middle of a 60 day assessment of cybersecurity readiness that is already stirring the pot. And the appointment of Vivek Kundra to a new Federal CIO position. On a side note here, while I was listening to Kundra speak in a keynote at FOSE, his old DC CTO offices were being raided by the FBI. Unbelievable.

So it was no surprise that over 50% of the people surveyed at FOSE told us that they are expecting some form of change regarding IT operations because of the new administration. 16% expect major changes; 36% expect some changes; 32% are taking a wait and see attitude and only 12% said it had no effect on their operations.

But the bigger news is the impact of the economic crisis on federal IT budgets and operations. It’s not too far a stretch to say that a lot of people think the federal government is made of money – $700 billion here, $700 billion there, bonuses for the execs of failing banks… (just had to get that one in there). While some people were anticipating funds being freed up for non-military spending by the new administration, almost 50% said that the current economic crisis had a definite affect on their IT operations budget: 9% indicated major cost cutting; 8% said no new projects were being planned and 30% had stalled projects. Once again about 32% took a wait and see attitude and 16% said the crisis had no effect.

For a look at the press release with more details, click here. This is just part 1 of the FOSE survey results. Part 2 will be out next week with details about what technologies and projects government IT is still spending money on.

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