According to the American Deputy Defense Secretary, William Lynn III, Apple is far more efficient than the Pentagon when it comes to rolling out new technologies. It took Apple “24 months to develop the iPhone,” but it takes the Pentagon “81 months to field a new computer system.” Think about that for a second. As the rate of new innovation increases, it takes, on average, 6.75 years for the Pentagon to roll out upgrades.
The burden of managing a government’s IT infrastructure keeps increasing in a world where budgets keep decreasing. No wonder civil servants are expected to carry our their jobs on inefficient machines that barely run Windows XP. According to Lynn, the gap needs to be closed, and we couldn’t agree more.
I live in a government town (Ottawa), and everyone I talk to is pretty frustrated that they don’t have the proper tools to do their jobs efficiently anymore. If the process of deployment can be streamlined, and civil servants could be given modern tools to do their jobs, could you imagine how much time and money could be saved?
We could probably get the Arts back in schools in no time.
Lynn is hoping that government agencies teaming up with Silicon Valley could solve their problems, together. “We want senior IT managers in the department to incorporate more commercial practices,” he says. “And we want seasoned industry professionals to experience first-hand the unique challenges we face at DoD.”
It makes sense if you ask me.
Article Via GovInfoSecurity