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New Venture Firms See Major Opps in Federal IT Market May 23, 2012 
U.S. government agencies are looking everywhere they can to cut costs -- including the cost of information technology. Tight budgets will be the dominating factor in federal IT procurement over the next several years -- at least. Yet in the face of budget discipline -- and even slightly projected declines in spending -- two venture capital companies see great promise in the federal IT market.
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Federal Cloud Adoption, Part 2: Raining Contracts May 16, 2012 
The U.S. government's pursuit of cloud-based technology has been characterized by a blizzard of policies, directives, technical studies, proposed contract vehicles and conferences. The federal "cloud first" initiative, requiring agencies to give priority consideration to cloud solutions for IT operations, began in December 2012. Now, an idea of how much business is at stake for IT vendors has surfaced -- and it's impressive.
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Federal Cloud Adoption, Part 1: Lots of Baby Steps May 15, 2012 
The U.S. government is learning quickly that achieving the next big thing in information technology depends upon implementing a huge number of little things. For federal IT managers, that big thing is the cloud. Federal agencies have busily pursued cloud solutions since December 2010, when the government adopted its "Cloud First" policy, requiring agencies to give priority consideration to cloud technologies.
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Federal IT Managers Get New Tools for Hammering Out Innovations May 02, 2012 
E-Commerce buzz words sound great in theory, but innovation often founders on the shoals of "getting there from here" as IT managers slog through the details of converting to new systems and programs. Federal agencies have been turning to shared services, data consolidation, commodity IT and, especially, the cloud. Directives to reform IT have been flying out of the OMB at regular intervals for the past 18 months.
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Salesforce.com Reaches for Bigger Slice of Government Cloud Pie April 25, 2012 
Salesforce.com has unveiled a new series of cloud computing initiatives for the government user base -- a highly lucrative niche for tech vendors, especially those that can present their products in a budget-friendly light. The new offerings, bundled under the name "Government Cloud," include a dedicated, multitenant instance of Salesforce.com's cloud infrastructure, a new AppExchange for the Government, and a Salesforce Government Partner Accelerator Program.
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Tech Industry Coalition Seeks More Government Transparency April 24, 2012 
President Obama initiated an Open Government program on his second day in office, pledging to make government information more accessible to the public. Three years later, that program has achieved significant success in many forums. However, the effort of making more federal information even more accessible is a continuing one that seems to get more challenging every year.
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US Agency Takes 'Private' Approach to Streamlining IT Procurement April 14, 2012 
Information technology vendors seeking business from the federal government are well advised to keep an eye on the requirements of big agencies such as the Department of Justice or the Department of Homeland Security. Within big departments, there are big components -- such as the Food and Drug Administration or the Bureau of the Census.
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Vendors Must Deal With More Federal 'Commodity' IT Purchasing April 10, 2012 
Federal agencies will be moving significant portions of their annual IT spending to "commodity" type procurement vehicles by the end of 2012. As part of continuing reforms in IT acquisition and management, the White House Office of Management and Budget has directed agencies to immediately begin the process of consolidating IT procurement, with a focus on shared service arrangements.
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Federal Agencies Struggle With Protecting IT Supply Chain April 03, 2012 
Managers of information technology systems in both the private and public sectors have had their hands full dealing with security breaches that come from hackers invading IT systems. Increasingly, however, IT systems are becoming vulnerable from another channel -- the actual supply chain sources of both hardware equipment and software programs. Federal agencies are just as vulnerable as commercial enterprises to supply chain security breaches.
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Telework Growth Spurt Drives Feds' Hunger for Mobile Tech March 27, 2012 
The market for mobile information technology will grow sharply in the next few years as employers increasingly embrace both "at home" telework solutions and the use of other remote access capabilities, including smartphones and tablets. In a February forecast on mobile data traffic, Cisco Systems predicted that such traffic will grow at a compound annual rate of 74 percent in the U.S. between 2011 and 2016.
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Federal Telework Initiative Not Quite There Yet March 20, 2012 
The notion that the U.S. government workforce is a huge, deskbound bureaucracy is the typical stereotype, but that vision is only part true. The federal workforce is huge, and it may be well be bureaucratic -- but federal workers are not always deskbound. Many federal jobs require mobility. Agricultural and industrial inspectors, Border Patrol agents, tax and financial examiners come to mind.
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PayPal Hits the Pavement With Mobile Payment System March 16, 2012 
PayPal has introduced PayPal Here, a mobile payment product that is meant to continue its push into retailing's brick-and-mortar world, no matter the size of the retailer. The global mobile payment system will allow small businesses to accept almost any form of payment, PayPal said. Businesses can accept payments by swiping cards with a fully encrypted thumb-sized card reader.
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New Avaya Service Allows Selective Outsourcing of Communications Ops March 16, 2012 
Avaya is formalizing an outsourcing service it has been offering select clients for the past year. The service, Avaya Communications Outsourcing Solutions, manages all of a company's communications operations, regardless of age, location or vendor. It is part of the company's portfolio of Managed Services. "This is a custom managed service targeted at companies in the enterprise space as opposed to the mid- sized space," said Avaya's Ed Nalbandian.
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The Cloud Computing Paradigm Shift Is Bigger Than IT March 13, 2012 
Information technology leaders in the U.S. government have been promoting cloud technologies for more than a year. In December 2010, the federal chief information officer launched an IT reform plan that required agencies to start adopting cloud technologies. At the time, some agencies had already implemented cloud solutions, and since then many others have initiated cloud programs.
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Halo Report Illuminates Angel Investor Trends March 08, 2012 
Now is a good time to be a startup looking for funding, suggests the Halo Report, which provides data and identifies trends affecting early stage entrepreneurs and investors. Angel Resource Institute, Silicon Valley Bank and CB Insights collaborated in the development of the report. Most notable among its findings: The median round size for angel group investments grew to $700,000, an increase of 40 percent over 2010.
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Feds to Keep IT Revenue Stream Flowing March 06, 2012 
Vendors can at least count on one big customer to provide a steady stream of revenue for the next year or two: the U.S. government. Federal Chief Information Officer Steven VanRoekel has been promoting the idea that when it comes to IT, the federal government must "do more with less." But the Obama administration's budget for 2013 basically proposes that federal agencies do more with the same.
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Fee-Hungry Banks May Test Customers' Patience Again March 02, 2012 
Bank of America appears poised to ignite the wrath of its customer base once again by introducing a new fee structure for basic checking accounts. The company reportedly is readying changes that will require users of basic checking accounts to pay a monthly fee. If the customers agreed to bank online or, buy more products, or maintain a certain balance, the fee may be waived.
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(There's No) Accounting for the Subscription Economy February 29, 2012 
You may remember the subscription economy from previous posts. It's one way to make sense of cloud computing and the many new and very different ways of doing business on the Internet. We're most familiar with Software as a Service and how different it is from conventional licenses; so familiar, in fact, that I don't need to describe it for you here.
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