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Trump Promises a Federal Technology Overhaul To Save $1 Trillion (technologyreview.com)
New submitter threc shares a report from MIT Technology Review: The tech world descended on Washington, D.C. yesterday to attend a tech summit at the White House. According to MIT Technology Review associate editor Jamie Condliffe: "Trump suggested he might relax his stance on immigration as a way to get tech leaders to help his cause. 'You can get the people you want,' he told the assembled CEOs. That sweetener may be a response to a very vocal backlash in the tech world against the administration's recent travel bans. Trump may hope that his business-friendly stance will offer enough allure: if tech giants scratch his back, he may later deign to scratch theirs." The report continues: "'Our goal is to lead a sweeping transformation of the federal government's technology that will deliver dramatically better services for citizens,' said Trump at the start of his meeting with the CEOs, according to the Washington Post. 'We're embracing big change, bold thinking, and outsider perspectives.' The headline announcement from the event was Trump's promise to overhaul creaking government computing infrastructure. According to Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law and advisor, there's much to be done: federal agencies have over 6,000 data centers that could be consolidated, for instance, while the 10 oldest networks in use by the government are all at least 39 years old. The upgrade, said Trump, could save the country $1 trillion over the next 10 years."
Doubts that it's going to save $1 trillion. Trump lies constantly and he won't stick to anything he says, so this could even be true in that he'll actually try but as soon as the plan hits any minor bumps he'll give up on it, move on to something else, and blame the Democrats for it. Right now the only "promise" he seems inclined to keep is to try to deport just about every illegal immigrant DHS can get its hands on.
Yes, if you got REALLY lucky, you might save money in the long term.
The history of government technology overhauls should indicate quite vividly that you not only spend tear-jerking amounts of money to upgrade your systems, you also spend a lot of time thereafter fixing it or throwing it all away and starting over again.
So I can't decide whether Mr. "The Cybers" man doesn't understand anything about technology, or he understands it so well that he is willing to lie to the American taxpayer about savings when what he actually means is to pump money into the (already wildly successful) technology sector. Either way, I wonder what his blue-collar supporters think about that ....
Why is this such a hard concept?
The USA has no obligation to people who do not live within her jurisdiction or who aren't citizens. There is sufficient talent inside her borders to do whatever we wish to do. It is a travesty that people are so short-sighted they would allow a functional invasion of foreigners.
I have no doubt that you could save hundreds of billions, possibly trillions over the years if smart agreeable people get together and figure it out. The problem is at some point you need to include others and then the trouble starts. Any organization over with more than 100 people run into this. The more people and departments the worse it gets. I am older now and I have seen smart ideas pass from their creators to the masses of underlings and watch it get mangled beyond belief. Your trillion dollar savings will be eaten up by those underlings a hundred fold.
I seriously doubt someone who's own business organization was found last fall to be running Windows Server 2003 and Exchange 2007 has any bloody clue how to manage such a task.
It funnels 1 trillion dollars into Trump holdings LLC
Young people entering the marketplace and want the newest shiny things.
Older people have enough experience to actually understand the meaning of "if it works, don't fuck with it".
#DeleteFacebook
Regardless of my feelings about Trump's lack of competence, he is undeniably a master at self promotion and posturing. Tech companies were never going to say no to hundreds of billions in new government IT contracts. But why waste an opportunity to make it seem like he masterfully negotiated the deal? He certainly knew most of his campaign promises would be disastrous, but they spoke to his base (and often independents) and gave him room to maneuver in the undiscerning public eye.
Trump never wanted to be responsible for destroying our economy with protectionist practices; it would make him look bad. Trump's performance as president has arguably shown his lack of competence at actually executing on his agenda, but his competence at self promoting himself even in the absence of accomplishments is unquestionable.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
All of that is the reason why you don't subcontract if you don't have to. Ignore the consultants you recommend outsourcing, they are only there to make a killing on the outsourcing, then propose insourcing to your successor and make another killing on basically reverting everything.
If you outsource and immediately make a contract with the outsourced company for the exact same services that it used to provide in-house, you didn't understand anything.
There are scenarios where outsourcing makes sense. Most of the actual outsourcings done are not in that set.
And if you are the federal government, your job is not to provide business to a small number of IT companies. Your job is to serve the people of your country in the best possible way, and having your own IT that doesn't answer to any other business goals is one important part of that mission.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
How could it be, all IT is is college boys sipping coffee and typing some cryptic mumbo-jumbo on their key...mouse...somethingorcyber.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.