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America's New CIO Loves Google
theodp writes "On Thursday, Barack Obama tapped Vivek Kundra for the post of Federal CIO, giving him responsibility for establishing and overseeing enterprise architecture across the federal government. So what might that look like? Well, little more than a month ago Kundra was slated to sing the praises of Google Apps to government officials in a webcast. A Kundra quote from the presentation slides: 'Why should I spend millions on enterprise apps when I can do it [with Google] at one-tenth cost and ten times the speed? It's a win-win for me.' You can follow Kundra's love affair with Google on YouTube, from his announcement of the Google-Washington DC partnership he brokered through a co-starring role with a Google attorney on a video pitching Google-enabled technology for the Obama Administration. Not surprisingly, some say Obama's choice of a Google-party-goer who worships Google could cause big headaches for Microsoft."
should throw a chair at Vivek
I for one have a problem with our government documents and processes being hosted by a private company. At least Microsoft just sells software.
It sounds as idiotic as "America's Sweetheart" or "America's Team" or anything else that assumes some kind of lockstep agreement.
America's CIO -- bitching about timesheets, hiring H1-Bs, taking kickbacks from vendors, expecting unpaid overtime & on-call time and canceling vacations at the last minute.
As long as he can separate business from technology, he'll be fine. Google does have some amazing technology - Gmail, Chrome, GoogleBooks, etc, etc, etc. And some iffy business practices, such as scanning books in copyright, a near monopoly in search and advertising, and a few employee accusations. As long as he can keep the two things distinct and treat each accordingly, there shouldn't be a problem.
"Not surprisingly, some say Obama's choice of a Google-party-goer who worships Google could cause big headaches for Microsoft."
Man, that's just terrible news.
It is by my will alone my thoughts acquire motion; it is by the juice of the coffee bean that the thoughts acquire speed
I work in the intelligence community, and I have to say we are way behind the commercial side in application development and other IT areas. We spend millions in development of programs that can't begin to match free programs available on the internet like Google Earth. Open Source to us means unclassified information; hardly anyone is aware of Linux, Open Office, or other open source solutions. Having someone who is not beholden to government contractors can only be a good thing. And I say that as a government contractor.
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
Microsoft has had the computer business to itself for decades
now. And they have done very well. How else would they become
such a giant behemoth(err monopoly).
It is only fair (and it is time) for the world to spread their remaining
IT dollars elsewhere.
With Google apps being available for next to free, that should
not hurt us as much as rebuying MS OFFICE every 1.5 years
from Redmond.
Hope it pans out for Google.
Kundra's enthusiastic comment about saving millions by using Google apps instead of buying enterprise software would worry me if I lived in the US.
I don't particularly care if MS loses a big sale, but the question of ownership doesn't seem to come up.
How safe is government data if it's stored on someone else's servers?
Also, why is Google being pitched as the only alternative?
No responsible business (or government!) would use Google Apps. Would you want all your most important company data, as well as all of your customer's information, in the hands (and datacenter) of a search company?
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
...At least Microsoft won't hold a monopoly on that title anymore.
Well, for one, you cannot use Google Apps on any classified network (that would cover most federal employees, as most of the federal government is DoD) unless Google is willing to sell a permanent, certified copy of Google Apps to be loaded onto each network and isolated from the rest of the world. For another, the federal government is already starting to look at using open source software to replace existing components like Oracle that cost way too much for what they are commonly used. Just switching to PostgreSQL for all of the federal databases that are just large bit buckets would probably save a few billion dollars.
You don't need Google for that. Microsoft has been more than capable so far to dig its own grave, and a big chunk of lobbying is was kept them out of it several times. Obama policies against lobbies is what will do the biggest damage.
Google is not exactly hostile to well-behaved competition. They helped Yahoo when they started to have troubles (and yahoo is the company that matches most of google services since the start), and didnt stop helping Firefox after releasing Chrome. And don't think they are in very bad relations with IBM, Sun or other big players on the field. But Microsoft... well, is Microsoft.
You are not alone. Using google apps are fine for your run of the mill type up needs. But for government documents especially that of the sensitive issue, google apps are horribly inadequate. For starters, google stores the documents on their server farms and do not really delete anything. This can be a security issue. Second, the default for ssl is log in only, potential for unencrypted transmission of sensitive data being intercepted is huge. Data retention, data backup, and data recovery are also huge issues with google docs. This guy is obviously an idiot and a business man wearing an IT guy suit. When the requirement can't even be met, saving money is a moot point.
Where is the "Ignorant" mod tag?
Nothing is. And the thing about Google is that if the government contracts out with them, Google is contractually obligated to facilitate data migration should the government decide to switch.
Microsoft has no such commitment to data openness. So sure, we're trading one monopolist for another, but the new one has contractual obligations that ease the transition should a better alternative appear.
I mean, I hope the new appointee helps in pushing `open standards' including ODF. For Google, while I love the company itself, I do not understand why it still has no filter for searching ODF documents just like PDFs and MS Office documents.
Have a look.
What also does not help is the fact that there is not a single application in the Open Source world that is 100% compliant to ODF! Think about it...we push open standards (when attacking Microsoft), but cannot create an application that is 100% compliant with existing and a fairly popular standard!
There are suggestions that OpenOffice.org is not 100% compliant either. This is shameful in the least.
Why is he talking about saving money. This is the time we need to be thinking about spending. We are proposing a trillion plus dollar budget and this guy is talking about win-win situation. Tax payers have lot of money. As soon as you get to a govt position where you have some decision on spending, you need to start treating Tax payers as ATM machines. That should be the litmus test for becoming a govt. employee. This CIO seems to fail in that regard. I ask all of you call your representatives and senators to push for firing of this guy. Thank you all and God Bless the USA.
It seems every third comment is along the lines of... "do we really want our data on a private companies servers?"
Get a clue, what this guy might do is switch the government to government owned servers running google software. Right now, my email, on the DHS network, is pulled from an exchange server... MS does not own the server. The great thing about google's code is that it would scale much better than anyone else's, eliminate the need for client software on individual workstations, and prevent users from storing mail locally on their machines (archive pst's) as is so commonly done now with the tiny mailboxes and huge attachments that inexperienced users are so fond of sending around here. Because each exchange server has it's own mail store, an attachment could exist on every mail server in our organization... while on google, an attachment is stored very efficiently and only on multiple servers for redundancy purposes.
My vote is for google code on government owned equipment... it would be by far the most efficient and cost effective solution.
Sometimes the best solution is to stop wasting time looking for an easy solution.
Does it bother anyone that Google (yes, google, the company whose main goal is to catalog all the world's data) will now have the US government as it's highest paying customer? What happens when the US Gov comes knocking on Google's door for some data on you, me, whoever. With money flowing in Google's direction, Google will be more likely to hand over any information that the government wants. Time for the tinfoil hats...
Yes, my girlfriend is a BitchX
Nationalize google!!!!
That would never happen. We only subsidize failure. We tax the hell out of success to discourage others from attempting it though ;)
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
I'm okay with Google just taking over the whole government, really. They seem to run things pretty well. Hell, scrap income taxes and make it all add-supported.
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
Now you just confounded me. Or aren't you just allowed to tell us? Come on ;-)
(FWIW: captcha is "evident". Spooky, ain't it? :-/
Mr. Ballmer, is that you?
Why if they were power hungry, they would be
Yeah, thank God that Google is not that bad.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I, the customer, am responsible for that job. The customers can make companies rich and big, if I like their product. I want the government to be fair to all companies. Just be neutral.
Also, I am sure when MS was first out, people & government loved them too. Look where we are now. No one can guarantee that Google won't be the next MS.
Information Technology is such a large fraction of both the federal budget and national economy that the president should have direct point guy on it.
Just hope he doesnt cathc the democratic disease of big, pushy government.
I just hope that the new CIO pays more attention to the growing needs of American companies and consumers around information security. Today, we have a myriad of standards, legal requirements and regulatory guidance, but little that has truly helped protect consumer private data and trade secrets. Maybe this new CIO will help focus more attention to securing our national information infrastructure!
Check out HoneyPoint, our tools for combatting the insider threat! http://www.microsolved.com/honeypoint/
Not from the U.S., but I suppose I would assume that the US Government would have some pull to get some of that stuff customized and to develop their own solution on top of Google's infrastructure.
What the heck is a Google, anyway?
Who didn't see this coming?
It's just payback for support during the election. It's how it is done in Chicago.
And before someone marks this as a troll, look at the date and the newspaper. It's a liberal rag that wrote this story long before this was known. In fact, some have speculated that the reason the government backed off the Youtube Video hosting was because of this connection and how some people pointed it out. I guess it turns out that they just want to pick their battles.
I don't really care what people think about Google's services. They could be the best in the world. What is at stake here is the obvious money for political advantage and the rewarding of a corporation for their support in getting someone elected. Is this really the change we can believe in when one of the biggest problems with government that seems to be proclaimed by the democrats is all the corporate influence in the political system. I guess this is what "Transparency in government" means, out in the open, this is what they purchased.
The US Gov't has NEVER launched a large scale IT initiative, on time and on budget. If they have, post it.
I've heard that this internet thingy they've been working on at DARPA might be big one day...
Except it was built by contractors, like Google would be, not by the government itself. I work for a government contractor and I used to be a an officer doing technical work in the Army. The government farms out anything more complicated than setting up a COTS office network, and quite frankly they wouldn't do badly to farm those out too.
I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
Thats two wins for one person. Wow.
Funny you should say that. I'm the developer who is writing the new "clean up deleted files" code behind Google Apps, and I'm personally responsible for making sure that your statement is wrong. There are two reasons why Google doesn't keep everything around. One is public, and the other is common sense.
1) There is a retention policy as a part of the SLA, and if we're found in flagrant violation of the retention policy, it could be actionable. Bad for Google.
2) That's a LOT of data to keep around, and data storage costs $$$. If we were to keep around full history on everything stored in Google apps, our costs would rise substantially and if you've been paying attention to news about Google, you know that Google management is currently (and correctly, IMHO) obsessed about costs.
So we absolutely do delete your files. Our public retention policies state that we keep your data around for a short while, just in case you want to undelete or whatever. After that period of time, we're eager to reclaim those resources and put them back to work.
'Why should I spend millions on enterprise apps when I can do it [with Google] at one-tenth cost and ten times the speed? It's a win-win for me.'
Becasue Google doesn't ahve the same strict requirements a government agency has, don' let this perceived win-win for you be a loss for the people you work for, the citizens.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
He's the CIO for the Federal government. The Federal government is not America, despite its constant attempts to completely and utterly replace it with itself.
Slashdot: Playing Favorites Since 1997
Google as an entity isn't going anywhere and you can't call a business a single point of failure
Except it routinely does. Gtalk, Gmail, and other services have gone down partially, regularly.
trust me, their infrastructure is well built to sustain multiple failure.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Too_Big_to_Fail_policy and http://articles.latimes.com/2008/oct/10/business/fi-carstocks10 and http://housingdoom.com/2008/07/11/fannie-mae-and-freddie-mac-too-big-to-fail-too-big-to-bail/
The mortgage, car, and general financial market make Google look like a tiny little grain of sand. Google makes its money entirely off advertisers (they have no other revenue stream except a tiny amount of money from hosted apps), and guess what is one of the first things companies scale back on?
I work in government IT. Government doesn't have the buying power to hire the trained workstaff to set up an infrastructure like this reliably.
High availability infrastructure is well understood and relatively easy to implement. Maybe they don't where you work, but that doesn't imply nobody in government can. Also, in case you hadn't noticed, there is a very, very large pool of qualified, cheap, available labor right now- it's called "the unemployment line."
Please help metamoderate.
rejected by women
There, fixed that for you
I agree that webapps cannot replace good old desktop apps... etc....
But wouldn't there be some use cases in which Google apps might be an appropriate choice?
Nevertheless, they're not going to replace a huge installed base over night... And a little competition is not bad...
Obama announces an open government and a closed Guantanamo - then he asks to dismiss cases based on national security. Then he recruits the DoJ straight out of the ranks of the Music Mafia - then he appoints a net-neutrality friendly CIO.
That he's cozy with Google, who I also don't know whether to love or hate anymore, is hardly even surprising.
I'm not calling him a flip-flopper (wow, that term got loaded in the last election) and I supported and still support him, but could he please pick a course and stick with it?
What if Google goes to Dagobah, finds master Yoda, fails their test and comes out the other side as Darth Google?
When will the people embrace open technology that is transparent and independent of a vendor. There is no guarantee of Google's altruism aside from some stupid motto that means nothing and really points to naivete.
That's great, please make sure to not only clear out data on disk, but in index and cache as well.
Where is the "Ignorant" mod tag?
My miss then, but i am a bit confused on why they don't just enable SSL by default for all. I mean it isn't so much that people don't end up switching to full SSL anyways.
Where is the "Ignorant" mod tag?
We are MS. You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I look at the 60's counterculture as a methaphor for the rise of Microsoft. It felt good to have you're own computer with you're own operating system where you could do whatever you want without submitting your request to the "mainframe acolytes". It was like "free love" or getting high. Unfortunately, Microsoft was doomed to failure just like "free love" because it is an adolescent fantasy that neglects certain long-term realities.
I have worked for the government and witnessed firsthand the "orgy" of software development that ensued with the introduction of PC. I watched software projects bloat then die from the undisciplined pile up of requirements. I stood in amazement as program managers spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on programs that were glorified spreadsheets. I was annoyed as the same programs were rewritten from scratch to look sexier but do mostly the same thing. Nobody can waste money on software like the state and federal governments.
This eventually lead to the lockdown of systems in contracts like NMCI (Navy Marine Corps Intranet) to stop the "f**king around" with computers. I see Google as just another way to wrest wasteful IT spending from individual departments. They can't completely stop people from "getting high" on software development but they can try and keep it from interfering with critical systems and create a more unified infrastructure.
Why can't we just focus on the good news! Microsoft/"Free Love" is going away slowly but surely. Adult supervision is back in vogue and it's about time.
"Meaningless!, Meaningless!" says the Teacher. "Utterly meaningless!"