Outgoing Federal CIO Warns of 'IT Cartel' In DC

CWmike writes "In a wide-ranging discussion Friday with President Barack Obama's top science advisors, Federal CIO Vivek Kundra warned of the dangers of open data access and was sharply critical of government IT contracting, telling the committee: '...We almost have an IT cartel within federal IT' made up of very few companies that benefit from government spending 'because they understand the procurement process better than anyone else.' He added: 'It's not because they provide better technology.'"

And this applies exclusively to IT.

[Anonymous Coward]

Not any other area of federal contracting. No sir, this is exclusively an IT problem...

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:And this applies exclusively to IT.

[robbyb20]

Sorry, but hes the CIO. He should have no comment on any other part of the government since what he says wouldnt be valued by the public eye since its "not his area of expertise" We are lucky he even said this. Should the CIO of a company be calling out the Marketing Dept? How about HR?

Regulatory Capture

[TheSync]

"'because they understand the procurement process better than anyone else.' He added: 'It's not because they provide better technology.'""

This is another example of Regulatory Capture [wikipedia.org], where private entities use the regulatory process created for the public interest to forward their private interests.

Whenever we open up complex regulatory regimes (such as the incredibly insane Federal government procurement process, campaign finance regulations, etc.), inevitably someone will figure out how to game the system for their private benefit.

The best regulations are simple ones, as complexity breeds gaming. Complex regulations also encourage corruption on the government side as well.

Re:And this applies exclusively to IT.

[kaizendojo]

I would hope that the janitor would be able to call out the CIO if he found him to be wasting company resources. At least that's th way W. Edwards Deming saw it, and I've always been inclined to agree. He said that the most important people in the company are usually the lowest on the corporate pyramid because they have day to day contact with the customer. All workers need to be empowered to be part of the quality control equation becuase they all function within the system. It seems to have worked quite well for Japan and many of the other Asian nations...

Re:How can you take him seriously?

[Amouth]

So i assume the pentagon is a horrid idea and that we should never have the leaders of these branches in the same area as each other?

aside from your "cruse missile" (which by the way would work just as well now as it would then) comment the other stuff is already covered inside a data center - just because the info is in the same building doesn't mean the networks talk to each other - nor does it mean one side knows what the other is doing..

Re:And this applies exclusively to IT.

[pixelpusher220]

This whole BS MBA compartmentalized mentality is killing America.

I sooo much prefer the "Palinization" spewing word salad on any topic imaginable that they know nothing about...

Re:And this applies exclusively to IT.

[ChronoFish]

You don't need to be a baker to know when you've had a bad pie.

-CF