Local & State Agencies
After several years of conservative fiscal spending, state and local government offices are facing pent-up demand for technologies, and IT spending is expected to go from $50 billion in 2006 to $72 billion by fiscal 2011.
The rebound in spending will impact hardware infrastructure for data and voice communications, as well as the workforce. The government watch group that did the study predicts that the next 10 quarters will focus on border defense, homeland security, professional services and healthcare.
Two major Midwestern cities have appointed new technology chiefs:
Hardik Bhatt moved up from the Deputy director of IT in the Emergency Management office to Director of Business and Information Services in Chicago.
Andrea Casselton is the new CTO for St. Paul Minnesota, after many years with US Bank.
Way-To-Go Web Conferencing
Wainhouse Research, an industry leader, recently identified three areas to consider when replacing your existing ASP service with an on-premise web conferencing server:
1) overall effectiveness2) ease of implementation
3) immediate return on investment.
Web conferencing solutions from Forum Communications provide several
strategic advantages for your company.
Forum WebMeet B delivers on-demand web conferencing. Availability,
coupled with easy initiation and unlimited usage make the web conferencing
browser an obvious solution to add to your in-house network. WebMeet
B runs on industry standard hardware/OS platform and supports industry
standard conferencing algorithms. Easily integrating into other
workflow applications (calendaring, email/texting, reporting and
attachments), in-house web collaboration provides additional security
for shared documents, white boarding, chat and shared desktop applications.
According to the study, 80% of web conferencing users feel the return
on investment is obvious and find it easy to justify bringing web
conferencing in-house.
Small Business Spending Goes Short
The Energy Department has fallen short of its small business prime contracting goals in four of the last five years. According to the GAO, the agency set its small business contracting goal at 5 percent in 2001, but only awarded 2.89 percent of its contracts to small companies. In 2002, the department lowered its goal to 3.7 percent, and still missed, achieving only 3.11 percent. In 2003, Energy passed its goal of 3.7 percent, by awarding 4.08 percent of all its contracts to small firms. The department increased its 2004 goal to 5.06 percent, and fell short by at only 4.18 percent. Last year, the department failed to achieve its 5.5 percent goal, with only 4.15 percent of all projects going to small companies. The Energy Department spends more than $20 billion a year on goods and services.
