White House IT Crackdown Might Actually Boost Some Vendors
August 25, 2010
| 12:55 PM
Some contractors are welcoming the White House's threat to cut off funding for risky information technology projects as a moment that could be financially advantageous to them, Nextgov.com reported.
The Office of Management and Budget on Monday released a list of roughly 30 at-risk, mission-critical IT projects worth about $30 billion that need reworking. Simultaneously, OMB officials are deciding the fate of about 30 financial system projects, a historically costly class of IT systems that the White House halted on June 28. Agencies must downsize the projects or scrap them to start afresh.
The drastic measures are part of the Obama administration's effort to end the traditional practice of rolling out complex IT systems that take years to build and often fail.
OMB now wants agencies to break projects into smaller chunks that can be deployed more quickly and cheaply. This means some system contractors will be paid less while agencies stop to redirect wayward projects.
That's just fine for some suppliers of easy-to-configure software, even though they were affected by the pause in the projects. Executives from these companies said they could receive more business when departments recompete canceled projects, or when they buy smaller systems in the future.
"When you get beyond the fear and anxiety of, 'Oh my God! I'm on the list,' most people who've been around will confide in you that this [megaproject] model has to go," said David Lucas, chief strategy officer for Global Computer Enterprises, which provides Web-based hardware and software for financial management. GCE is the contractor for the Labor Department's new financial system, which is one of the projects OMB put on hold. To read more, click here.
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