Digital Discourse / Software

This Week in Public Sector Innovation

November 1, 2012 By

Cloud Computing Praised Following Hurricane Sandy: In the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, federal efforts to transition existing data centers and other IT assets to the cloud are being lauded for their contribution to keeping government operations up and running. According to reports from Federal Computer Week the Federal government saw limited disruption in IT operations and agencies like GSA credited recent transitions to cloud computing for providing them with a more robust, geographically diverse and redundant infrastructure helping them weather the storm. The big question going forward is will natural disasters like this most recent event spur more agencies to adopt the cloud or update their aging IT infrastructure?

EPA Awards Contract for Email, Collaboration in the Cloud: On October 31st, EPA awarded Microsoft and Lockheed Martin a $9.8 million contract to migrate existing EPA email and related applications to Microsoft 365, their cloud-based email and communication platform. Under the terms of the contract award more than 25,000 users will be transitioned to Microsoft Office 365 for Government, a new multi-tenant service that stores U.S. government data in a segregated community cloud and includes e-mail, calendars, scheduling and collaboration tools for internal and external use. See the press release here.

Next 4 Years to Bring Continued Innovation to Government IT: Nextgov has a profile on what the next four years will look like for Federal IT, regardless of who wins next week’s election. Their point and it’s an accurate one, is that four years ago as President Obama came into office, there was little discussion about cloud computing, agile development, mobile apps for agencies, or bring your own device. Today, agencies have moved mission-critical applications to the cloud and we continue to debate a host of key IT issues such as BYOD, collaboration and how to better empower federal CIOs. Read the full take from Nextgov.

Cloudy Election? Did you know that some states, including battleground states Virginia and Florida allowed residents of their state living overseas to cast their primary votes using LiveBallot, an online balloting website based on Microsoft’s cloud-computing platform? No word on whether or not the general election will allow that same technology. Information Week has the story from earlier this year.

Michael Hettinger is VP for the Public Sector Innovation Group (PSIG) at SIIA. Follow his PSIG tweets at @SIIAPSIG.

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Filed Under: Cloud/Gov, Government, PSIG, Software, Software Events

CODiE Awards Judges: A Conversation with the Coordinator

October 31, 2012 By

Nominations have closed for the 2013 CODiE Awards, and I am definitely excited about the variety and caliber of products in this year’s program. I know our judges are looking forward to reviewing the products as well. Our first round review is the core of the CODiE Awards. It is also the portion of the program that gives me the most interaction with the judges and nominees. I am constantly in contact with both groups, ensuring that everyone has a great experience.

What is the first round review?

For the first round review, two judges review each product in each category. For example, products nominated in two categories will be assigned four judges. During this first round, judges participate in product demonstration s given by the nominees. Two options are available for the products demonstrations:

– Live product demonstration: Nominations walk through their product webinar-style with the judges participating as they do the walk-through

– Recorded product demonstration: Nominees may already have a video product demo that can be sent to the judges to watch.

We recommend that the nominees keep the demos to under an hour. If it is a live demo, remember to leave time for Q&A with the judges.

The first round review also includes product access. It’s beneficial for the judges to get a feel for the product on their own, as a supplement to the guided demo. Product access can happen in several forms, including temporary online login information or by sending the physical product to the judge.

I also suggest sending as much additional information as you would like to the judges. This can be additional links to PDF’s, videos, news releases, etc.

Who are the judges?

We take great care in selecting the industry experts who volunteer as judges. Each division reviews every judge application to determine if he/she is qualified. We want to ensure there are no conflicts of interest.

For our software and content categories, the judges consist of industry executives and analysts, members of the media, bloggers, investors, and even some customers.
For our education categories, we use educators and administrators as our judges. They are the users of these products and can best determine what products may work the best in their classrooms.

Judging is a great experience because it gives the customers a chance to review the products and provide feedback that the companies can use to make improvements.

How can you help?

We are still looking for judges in several of our categories in Content, Software, and Education. If you are interested in judging or can recommend a colleague please complete our brief judge application.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________

Wendy Tanner Wendy Tanner is CODiE Awards Coordinator. Follow the CODiE Awards on Twitter @CODiEAwards

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Filed Under: All About the Cloud, Cloud Computing, CODiEs, Content, Content Events, Ed Tech Industry Summit, Education, Education Events, Finalists, Information Industry Summit, Mobility, Personalized Learning, Social Media, Software, Software Events, Uncategorized

SIIA’s Keith Kupferschmid Weighs in on Kirtsaeng v. Wiley on HuffPo Live

October 30, 2012 By

SCOTUS was undeterred by Hurricane Sandy yesterday, holding arguments in Kirtsaeng v. Wiley while most of Washington hunkered down for the storm. The landmark case involves the legality of purchasing copyrighted works overseas and selling them here in the U.S. without authorization from the publisher. SIIA’s Keith Kupferschmid joined HuffPo Live to explain how the case threatens the U.S. information industry–wrapping up his segment just minutes before losing power.

Watch the full segment:

The justices seemed fairly split on the case during the argument. Wiley’s counsel, Ted Olson, reiterated a critical point made in SIIA’s amicus brief – that there are many of exceptions in the Copyright Act, including the Fair Use Defense, which can be used to prevent the concerns raised by the appellant.

We believe that the First Sale Doctrine should not apply to materials made and sold overseas. It threatens to severely undermine U.S. companies’ ability to compete in foreign markets. Ultimately, we hope that the Court will be convinced by the very real argument that both publishers and consumers will face direct harm if our markets are allowed to be flooded with copyrighted material that was intended for purchase overseas. American consumers will be defrauded into buying products that may be inferior or otherwise very different from those intended for U.S. markets, while confronting higher prices in the long run. Meanwhile, consumers and students abroad will lose access to valuable U.S. resources that were created for them.

Laura Greenback is Communications Director at SIIA. Follow the SIIA Public Policy team at @SIIAPolicy.

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Filed Under: Government, Policy, Policy - Intellectual Property, Software Tagged With: , ,

This Week in Public Sector Innovation

October 25, 2012 By

Top IT Trends, Part I: Regardless of who wins the Presidential election on November 6th, we know technology will be driving a large part of the economy for years to come. So what will be driving technology for the next 5 years? This week, Gartner released its top 10 list of tech trends that will be driving the agenda. It includes:

  • Organizational entrenchment and disruption
  • Software-defined networks
  • Bigger data and storage
  • Hybrid cloud services
  • Client and server architecture

For the full list see the report from Forbes.

Top IT Trends, Part II: Now that we know what the top overall IT trends are for the next five years, what can we expect for government in 2013? According to the Government Business Council, the research arm of GovExec, it’s more of what we have been seeing over the past couple of years. That means: cloud, big data, data center consolidation, mobility, cybersecurity and health IT. Read the full report here.

OMB reporting big savings from PortfolioStat: OMB savings estimates resulting from the coordinated effort to identify and eliminate wasteful IT spending across government will total $2.5B over 3 years as a result of PortfolioStat. The savings come by reducing federal commodity IT spending and leveraging innovative tools like big data to maximize the efficiency of existing IT resources. See more on the OMB blog.

Sequestration makes its way into final Presidential debate: As Washington continues to try and figure out the potential impact of “sequestration” on agency budgets, should Congress and the White House fail to reach a deal to avoid it, President Obama vowed Monday night that it would not happen. The proposed cuts, totaling $120B, which go into effect on January 2nd, are already reportedly slowing contracting by some agencies, as uncertainty causes concern. Politico has a story.

Michael Hettinger is VP for the Public Sector Innovation Group (PSIG) at SIIA. Follow his PSIG tweets at @SIIAPSIG.

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Filed Under: Cloud/Gov, Government, PSIG, Software, Software Events

Interview with New Member, Transverse

October 24, 2012 By

SIIA recently welcomed Transverse, a SaaS billing platform provider. I had a chance to speak with their Co-Founder, President, & CEO, James Messer. James is an 18 year veteran of the telecommunications and IT industries and I asked him about Transverse’s position in the marketplace.

Rhianna: Welcome to SIIA! Tell me a little about Transverse and what makes your billing platform unique.

James: For businesses looking to increase revenue or roll-out new business models, TRACT billing from Transverse is the only all-in-one activity-based billing platform that can meter/rate and bill based on customer behavior. Unlike basic subscription or expensive legacy billing systems, TRACT provides a simple solution to complex billing challenges and enables companies to engage with customers.

Rhianna: Tell me more about activity-based billing, what are the advantages?

James: Consumers are using monthly services to download songs, stream movies or view a digital news article, but most would prefer to only pay for what they use and that’s where subscriptions are limiting. Businesses can provide a more personalized experience for consumers while creating new revenue streams by charging on an activity basis instead.

Rhianna: You talk about this evolution of billing, how it has gone from Billing 1.0 to Billing 3.0. What do you mean when you refer to Billing 3.0?

James: Billing 3.0 means billing is a valuable tool that extends beyond finance department. By capturing revenue in an accurate, timely fashion using activity-based billing, other groups (such as the marketing department), can use the resulting analytics to identify and respond to emerging customer trends faster than competitors. With Billing 3.0, billing becomes a powerful enabler of product innovation and rapid introduction.

Rhianna: I noticed you have a number of partners, payment and technology partners. How important are these partners to the Transverse go-to-market strategy?

James: Partners are a key ingredient to helping our customers succeed. These include active payment partners, such as PayPal, Chase Paymentech, CyberSource, Authorize.net, and First Data. Additionally, we partner closely with technology companies like SugarCRM, Pervasive, OpSource, Rackspace Hosting, and OneLogin to enable seamless integration and ease of use.

 

Rhianna Collier is VP for the Software Division at SIIA.

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Filed Under: Software, Software Events Tagged With: , , , ,

This Week in Public Sector Innovation

October 18, 2012 By

Federal News Radio CIO Survey: In August Federal News Radio survey 130 federal CIO personnel on key issues affecting government IT today. Among the key findings: budget issues are driving CIO priorities, DOD views cloud differently than do civilian agencies (they see more savings), and many CIOs are concerned about the impact of sequestration on IT spending. See the full summary from FedNewsRadio.com here.

George Washington University hosts discussion on Rep. Issa’s IT reform proposal: On Thursday, GWU’s Law School hosted an open discussion on House Oversight and Government Reform (OGR) Chairman Darrell Issa’s proposed reform of the 1996 Clinger-Cohen Act, which governs federal IT acquisition. The proposal, which is not expected to be introduced until early next year, would empower federal CIOs by giving them budget authority, as well as codifying a number of the Obama Administrations proposals from the 25 Point Plan to Reform Federal IT Management such as data center consolidation and FedRAMP. Ecommerce Times has a story. See the draft bill on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee site.

FedRAMP continues to make progress, news: FCW / 1105 Media released a report this week on the challenges of implementing the FedRAMP program. FedRAMP, which reached its initial operating capabilities in June has not yet approved a single Cloud Service Provider under the program. FedRAMP has approved 15 third party assessment organizations (3PAOS) to work with CSPs to meet the baseline control requirements and expects to grant provisional authorization to 3 CSPs by the end of this year. Read more with a link to the survey here.

Michael Hettinger is VP for the Public Sector Innovation Group (PSIG) at SIIA. Follow his PSIG tweets at @SIIAPSIG.

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Filed Under: Cloud/Gov, Government, PSIG, Software

Cloud Computing and Its Green Lining: Responses to James Glanz and the New York Times

October 17, 2012 By

Author James Glanz created a stir in September with his New York Times article, when he wrote that cloud computing and Big Data are actually big energy wasters. I have written about this controversy previously for the SIIA and have found that not to be the case. In fact, data centers are environmentally friendly for three reasons:

  1. Large data centers are more efficient than small and medium-sized data centers, so regardless of this looking negative at first blush, the electricity/unit of computing is less.
  2. Devices themselves are using less energy especially as  desk tops and laptops give way to tablets and smartphones,
  3. Cloud data centers can and will drive to renewable energy, as detailed in this report. Companies like Oracle, Adobe, and  IBM are devoting their considerable resources to sustainable computing practices, and this trend will only increase as they continue to work to make data centers more efficient and clean.

A number of voices have come out in support of cloud computing’s environmental benefits for these very reasons. The New York Times hosted quite a few on their Room for Debate page. Here is a short sampling.

Urs Hölzle, Senior Vice President for Technical Infrastructure at Google, knows from personal experience how data centers work, operating Google’s servers, networks, and data centers. He writes on the New York Times website:

“Because of our obsession with efficiency, we’re able to help others be more efficient as well. Small and medium data centers use two-thirds of the total energy because it’s much harder to run them efficiently, so the trend of replacing on-premise servers with efficient cloud services will reduce the amount of energy used to run the same workload.”

Similarly, Jonathan Koomey, research fellow at the Steyer-Taylor Center for Energy Policy and Finance at Stanford University refutes Mr. Glanz:

“Modern cloud-based data centers are much more efficient and have much higher utilization levels than standard data centers, giving them substantial economic and energy-related advantages. And the shift to mobile computing promises big efficiency gains for users as well. For example, laptop computers, which typically use a third to a fifth of the power of desktops, outsold desktops for the first time in 2009 (according to IDC data). Sales of tablets, which are even more efficient, are growing much faster than those for laptops.”

Gary Cook, the senior I.T. sector analyst for Greenpeace International’s Cool IT campaign,  also provides cautious optimism, writing:

Customers need companies to be more transparent about their energy choices so that they can understand the true environmental performance of their Internet and cloud use and make more informed choices. If given the information, people will choose a company that chooses clean energy. We can – and should – be able to feel good about our likes, tweets, photos and music, but it’s up to these companies to take the bold steps to make that possible.

Charles Babcock of Information Week summarizes the other side thusly:

“Everyone is doing a lot more computing, as the story notes. But as we do so, the amount of electricity consumed per unit of computing is going down, which the story somehow misses. Nowhere does the Times address this salient point. Instead, it concludes we are doing a lot more computing and, therefore, we are all guilty of driving environmental degradation. If you’re going to reform the world, you need to build a better soapbox than this.”

Tracy Carlin is a Communications and Public Policy Intern at SIIA. She is also a first year graduate student at Georgetown University’s Communication, Culture and Technology program where she focuses on intersections in education, video games and gender.

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Filed Under: Cloud Computing, Cloud/Gov, Policy - Cloud Computing, Software
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