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Tech CEOs Tell US Government How To Cut Deficit By $1 Trillion

Kandahar

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Slashdot IT Story | Tech CEOs Tell US Gov't How To Cut Deficit By $1 Trillion

"The U.S. government can save more than $1 trillion over the next 10 years by consolidating its IT infrastructure, reducing its energy use and moving to more Web-based citizen services, a group of tech CEOs said in a report released Wednesday.

It goes to show you that big solutions aren't always sexy. IT infrastructure is not an especially exciting topic, but investments in it have the potential to really help our nation. Granted, this report was not exactly produced by disinterested bystanders, so I'm not sure how valid their $1 trillion figure is...but in any case, better IT management can save the government a lot.
 
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Well you can only exaggerate so much, and $1 trillion is a lot of money, so I would expect that the real number is billions that could be saved.
 
Well you can only exaggerate so much, and $1 trillion is a lot of money, so I would expect that the real number is billions that could be saved.

I've seen some of the IT infrastructure at a couple federal government agencies. It's truly shocking how outdated they are. I'm working with an agency right now to streamline a very important process, and they still use paper forms for everything. Unbelievable.
 
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Slashdot IT Story | Tech CEOs Tell US Gov't How To Cut Deficit By $1 Trillion



It goes to show you that big solutions aren't always sexy. IT infrastructure is not an especially exciting topic, but investments in it have the potential to really help our nation. Granted, this report was not exactly produced by disinterested bystanders, so I'm not sure how valid their $1 trillion figure is...but in any case, better IT management can save the government a lot.

You'll probably find a lot of resistance as this will likely reduce the employed bureaucracy.
 
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I've seen some of the IT infrastructure at a couple federal government agencies. It's truly shocking how outdated they are. I'm working with an agency right now to streamline a very important process, and they still use paper forms for everything. Unbelievable.

Yes, government isn't exactly known as the bation of technological progress.
 
Yes, government isn't exactly known as the bation of technological progress.

Neither is the private sector. IT is seemingly incredibly difficult to pull off well for both sectors.
 
Neither is the private sector. IT is seemingly incredibly difficult to pull off well for both sectors.

You got that right

we are moving to an Oracle ERP system and it is not going very smoothly
 
You'll probably find a lot of resistance as this will likely reduce the employed bureaucracy.

No it won't. They'll just find other places in the bureaucracy to maintain their employment.
 
I've seen some of the IT infrastructure at a couple federal government agencies. It's truly shocking how outdated they are. I'm working with an agency right now to streamline a very important process, and they still use paper forms for everything. Unbelievable.

This reminds me of the story about how the NYPD still gets money to buy typewriters because no local or state government will foot the massive bill for building IT infrastructure for them.

NYPD typewriter bill nearly $1 million - UPI.com
 
No it won't. They'll just find other places in the bureaucracy to maintain their employment.

It will probably have some unwelcome changes, though.
 
It'll probably cost $1.5 trillion to execute all these changes and up-grades.
 
It'll probably cost $1.5 trillion to execute all these changes and up-grades.

Yea, easier to stay in the dark ages or even move back to the dark ages, than go forward and improve things.. nod. Bring back slavery!
 
Yea, easier to stay in the dark ages or even move back to the dark ages, than go forward and improve things.. nod. Bring back slavery!

How do we know that there will be any real improvements? We don't. Do we? So, you want the American tax payer to spend untold millions to line the pockets of these CEO's, to make upgrades that may not even work?
 
How do we know that there will be any real improvements? We don't. Do we? So, you want the American tax payer to spend untold millions to line the pockets of these CEO's, to make upgrades that may not even work?

Oh don't be such a luddite.
 
How do we know that there will be any real improvements? We don't. Do we? So, you want the American tax payer to spend untold millions to line the pockets of these CEO's, to make upgrades that may not even work?

You do it all the time with the military, so what difference does it make? Unlike the military, if this is done right (not that I expect it to be done right), then it could save you a bucket load of money that you then could waste on your military.

Point is saying that the idea is stupid because of your idiotic political system, does not mean the idea is actually stupid. Just means your political system is corrupt up to its eyeballs.
 
You do it all the time with the military, so what difference does it make? Unlike the military, if this is done right (not that I expect it to be done right), then it could save you a bucket load of money that you then could waste on your military.

Point is saying that the idea is stupid because of your idiotic political system, does not mean the idea is actually stupid. Just means your political system is corrupt up to its eyeballs.

Cutting the size of the beuracracy would be quicker, easier and cheaper.
 
You got that right

we are moving to an Oracle ERP system and it is not going very smoothly

The great thing about ERP systems is that you will always be adopting them.
 
Oh don't be such a luddite.

Until we kill a couple of people and smash things, I'm fine with being a pessimist with IT. It is usually the recommended route.
 
You could save the taxpayers a trillion dollars!
by installing our products all over the country, paying us millions to do so.
 
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No it won't. They'll just find other places in the bureaucracy to maintain their employment.

That's where a lot of the savings would come from though.
That and potential efficiency.

Just take a look at the SS website, it looks as if some parts of it where designed back in the early 90's.
The navigation is really crappy.
 
That's true too.

But I don't think we could argue that it wouldn't save some money.
Spending millions to save billions, isn't a bad idea.

Of course. However, taking the statements of a salesman at face value is not the best of plans.
 
How do we know that there will be any real improvements? We don't. Do we? So, you want the American tax payer to spend untold millions to line the pockets of these CEO's, to make upgrades that may not even work?

Actually, minor IT upgrades like faster communications channels; more powerful servers with faster file searching, indexing, and raw processing power; and updated security software account for huge savings in productivity and lessened down time for maintenance.

Also, with virtualization of servers through Hyper-V technology platforms, energy costs alone can rack up thousands in savings per site per year. Imagine running your Exchange, SCCM, notifications server, and your active directory and authentication servers all on the same box at the same time. Need to do an upgrade or patch? Simply copy your server, apply the patch, test...and when you're ready to go live with it, shut down the original virtual server and stream in the new one. No downtime and no expensive overtime for after hours maintenance. That's a huge savings right there.

And you know how much virtual server from microsoft costs? Nothing. That's right...it's free.
 
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