Feds Get Forward-Looking IT Procurement Advice

The old cliché about the difficulty of turning an aircraft carrier around applies to changing the way government deals with investing in information technology, according to two recent reports.

Federal agencies need to change course in handling IT spending quickly, particularly in reversing the inertia behind longstanding conflicts between chief information officers and chief financial officers over the procurement of IT resources, according to Research Director Shawn McCarthy, who authored the IDC Government Insights report.

Government IT managers need to loosen their longstanding attachment to unproductive legacy systems and focus on the advantages of newer technologies -- especially the cloud and mobile platforms, suggested Research Director Rick Howard, author of the Gartner report.

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Despite past conflicts between finance and IT staffs, federal IT spending has been robust -- although it should remain largely flat, at about US$78 billion per year for the next few years. However, budgetary demands to do more with less almost certainly will create tension between the CIO and the CFO.

"When it comes to where information technology money should be spent, the goals and motivations of a CFO can differ from those of a CIO," McCarthy said.

With the tightening of government budgets, the role of the CFO has expanded, he noted. The CFO now has a central role in determining how the taxpayers' money is spent. However, that can -- and often does -- lead to clashes with the IT staff, who have in-depth expertise on utilizing technology.

In the future, collaboration between the two will be required in the productive acquisition and deployment of IT, McCarthy said.

To reconcile the differences between IT staffs and financial managers, federal government departments and major agencies should continue the trend to "consolidate multiple, lower-level CIO offices into a single, more powerful agency-wide CIO," McCarthy suggested.

That would lead to a more focused and coherent approach to IT management. The process also would simplify collaboration between the CIO and CFO by reducing or even eliminating diffuse communication between multiple low-level IT staff members and the CFO.

Another major factor for improving collaboration is for each side to recognize the sea change in IT management that has resulted from the maturing cloud and shared service environment.

IT managers, especially the CIO, must jettison the idea that the IT department has control of IT equipment, facilities and programs, and is the sole owner, provider and guardian of those assets.

Especially in the procurement function, where CIOs and CFOs are most likely to tangle, managers need to "move IT procurement away from systems purchasing and management and toward IT services management," McCarthy said.

This approach is based on a realization that IT departments don't have to own and operate IT resources to be effective. Instead, IT departments need to act as internal advisors and facilitators to provide guidance to agencies in how best to utilize available technologies to meet agency goals and citizen requirements.

Sometimes that might involve actual on-site resources, but increasingly it will involve the IT staff acting as an expert intermediate to match up agency needs with appropriate capabilities, such as private sector cloud providers.

Similarly, CFOs must shed any behavior in which they purport to "know it all" when it comes to cost-effective IT. They may have a good knowledge of IT costs from their own exploration of vendor offering pricing points and from reviewing budget data.

However, they most likely don't know it all in terms of what is effective in the application of IT resources. That expertise resides, and still should reside, with the CIO staff.

"Often the IT team doesn't understand the agency's budgeting process, while the finance team doesn't understand the agency's IT systems," McCarthy said.

A good starting point for collaboration is for both departments to buy into the process of jointly developing a business approach for deploying IT resources, McCarthy suggested. CFOs who seek to logically influence IT planning should require the development of strong business plans to justify new IT expenditures. The objective of the process is for both teams to agree on the purpose for which the IT spending is required, and then to work out the procurement approach to implementing the plan.

"The business-focused collaboration that is needed today includes protecting the interests of each other and supporting the business needs of the other. The discussion should not be about fixing failures, it should be about how technology can be leveraged to meet the organization's strategic objectives," McCarthy said.

The CFO can be instrumental in establishing a business context.

"Often the IT people are reluctant to give up control, so it's the CFO who becomes the driver here to introduce budget realities and ask, for example, about what older machines are costing us money," McCarthy told the E-Commerce Times.

The CFO can directly or indirectly begin the consideration about using newer technologies, he said, by "initiating the conversation on what alternatives are available."

Slipping the Yoke of Legacy Systems

IT managers should establish an innovation budget to formally facilitate digital experimentation and to build strong working relationships with other digital leaders, within and outside an agency, recommends the Gartner report.

As with military planning, IT managers need to be wary of making investments designed to win the last war while failing to anticipate the conditions of the next one, it suggests.

"There is a risk that circumstances such as deferred infrastructure investments are forcing government CIOs to 'renovate the core' of IT at the expense of deploying new user-centric systems and services, such as CRM, industry-specific applications and enterprise applications, all of which rank low on the priority list," Howard noted.

The next challenge is to achieve full exploitation of both cloud technology and mobile platforms, he said, noting that the cloud has matured to the point that it should be the first option of any potential IT investment.

"Gartner believes that IT vendors are moving fast in the direction of cloud-based service models, and government agencies are becoming more comfortable with cloud-based solutions for reasons of subscription pricing and increased business agility," Howard wrote in the report.

"We recently predicted that by 2015, 50 percent of all new independent software vendors will be pure SaaS providers. This trend will challenge traditional procurement practices and expose government procurement channels to a more diverse array of small and midsize businesses than has been the case in the past," he pointed out.

"Government CIOs should begin with the default assumption that a public cloud option will be selected when re-engineering current business processes or designing new mobile services that are augmented by context-aware interactions," Howard advised.

In principle, every new investment or service, on every dimension -- including infrastructure -- should "incorporate the most advanced position," rather than rely on what has worked in the past, he added.

"With cost, value and security as top considerations, the most advanced position available to government CIOs is delivering services on public cloud, unless there is a reason not to," Howard said.

So too with the mobile world, which has moved from an interesting IT option to a nearly essential requirement. The Gartner study makes the following recommendations government IT managers:

• Make mobile the foundation of your digital government channel strategy;
• Increase mobile access to more business applications;
• Focus on mobile user experience design and the effectiveness of end-to-end processes involving a device and its context;
• Build a "Have we maximized contextualization opportunities?" step into all planning.

One major objective is to make sure that the value proposition of any investment fully recognizes the benefits of advanced technologies.

"The challenge is less about developing adequate cost-benefit and return-on-investment tools for IT investments and more about the discipline required to apply them consistently when measuring project performance or benefits realization," Howard told the E-Commerce Times.

Standard methods, including ROI, key performance indicators and similar tools, are still workable. However, the changing landscape of technology also introduces modifications in value analysis.

For example, by using digital and mobile technologies, an agency could significantly improve the number of online queries it could handle from citizens. That improvement is a transactional benefit with a measurable cost -- and benefit.

On the other hand, the value of improved technologies that lead to more accurate government weather reports through improved analytics is not easily captured in conventional budget terms but is still significant.

"In the digital/mobile age," said Howard, "both are integral to creating measurable value."

Mozilla Gripes at Microsoft for Giving Edge an Edge

Mozilla CEO Chris Beard on Thursday published an open letter to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, calling on him to offer Windows 10 users an easier way to set their browser preferences.

Beard characterized the lack of choice in the Windows 10 experience as "very disturbing."

It appears to have been designed to override users' preferences for browser and apps, forcing users into an experience Microsoft wants them to have instead of one they want, he charged.

Users who upgrade to Microsoft's Windows 10 using the express setup will have the new Edge browser set as their default.

"We designed Windows 10 to provide a simple upgrade experience for users and a cohesive experience following the upgrade," said Microsoft spokesperson Carly Olsen.

"During the upgrade, consumers have the choice to set defaults, including for Web browsing," she told TechNewsWorld. "Following the upgrade, they can easily choose the default browser of their choice."

Windows 10 on Wednesday became available as a free download for Windows 7 and 8 customers, and so far has been downloaded more than 14 million times.


 
Microsoft Update

With every update of an operating system, users may find that some programs are not compatible. There have been many complaints over a variety of issues when previous versions of Windows were introduced.

Mozilla tried to work with Microsoft to ensure that users of Firefox wouldn't face unnecessary headaches, Beard claimed, but to no avail.

It can be argued the company is making much ado about nothing, though.

"Actually, it seems fairly easy [to keep Firefox], especially since upgrading to Windows 10 doesn't uninstall third party apps, including browsers," said Charles King, principal analyst at Pund-IT.

"That said, users who want to use Firefox, Chrome or others as their default browsers will have to go through a manual process similar to the one in Windows 8," he told TechNewsWorld.

Microsoft may have stumbled a bit, because it should make life easy for its core customers and address their needs, King added.

Still, "it's worth asking why Microsoft should risk adding complexity to the upgrade process for the sake of a small minority of users -- especially when there's little sign that the users themselves are complaining," he noted.

End of the Line for Explorer

This isn't a case of simply switching users to Internet Explorer, either. In addition to updating the operating system, Windows 10 is also notable in that it replaces the long-running Internet Explorer with Edge, a browser that Microsoft touts as lighter, faster and more modern than IE.

Some of its new features could help Microsoft regain some of the market share it once had with IE.

"Considering that 73 percent -- or roughly three quarters of Internet users -- are not using Internet Explorer, it is a minor inconvenience or an annoyance at most," said Roger Entner, principal analyst at Recon Analytics.

"Microsoft's position in the browser world is a mere shadow of its former dominance," he told TechNewsWorld.

"While it may be mildly annoying for users of other browsers, Firefox users have been able to switch before, so this shouldn't be that hard -- and unlike in the past, they don't have to download it," he added.

Nefarious Move

Microsoft deliberately limited consumer choice to give itself an unfair advantage, Beard suggested.

"People are seeing this is a nefarious move by Microsoft," said Entner, but it could be the other way around.

"It could give people a chance to experience Edge, but Mozilla doesn't even want them to try," he remarked.

"Previous versions of Windows have positioned IE as the default browser," noted King. "If you wanted something different, you had to make it happen yourself. Outside of slightly altering the process for choosing the default browser, Microsoft is doing what it's done for many years. I can't think of a better way to do it."

Replay of Windows 95 and IE

It was 20 years in the summer of 1995 that Microsoft took similar heat for using its newly launched Windows 95 as a way to gain market share with IE, which was closely tied to the OS. It is unlikely that Windows 10 and the Edge browser will trigger a replay. It's even possible that Microsoft won't enjoy any advantage.

"Those are the fears that Mozilla is trying to suggest -- that Microsoft will use Windows 10 as a way to gain an unfair advantage -- but the world has changed much in the past 20 years," Entner pointed out.

"Microsoft got its dominance because everyone went to the Internet for the first time and used Explorer, but today everyone has been to the Internet and now everyone has a preference," he added.

"The big difference is that 20 years ago, people went with the standard browser that was bundled," Entner recalled, because they had little exposure to alternatives.

Today, "that might be true in Africa," he speculated, "but not in the United States or Europe, or even in most of Asia."

Windows 10: Changing the Apple vs. Microsoft Dynamic

What I find most interesting about Windows 10 is that if Apple wanted to knock Microsoft off the desktop, then it -- not Microsoft -- should have released a product like this. When I say "like this," I mean one that could transform a smartphone into a PC.

My reasoning is that Microsoft is relatively weak in smartphones, and Apple currently is kicking Google all over the market. Given Google's power, that's pretty impressive -- of course, it is also largely Google's own fault.

Granted, Apple would have to lead with iOS, not OS X, but given Apple's massive mobile power, the result could be devastating. However, Apple won't go that route, because it effectively would eliminate its PC sales, and it wants both revenue streams. That gives Microsoft a unique lever if -- and this is a big if -- it can figure out a way to use it.

I'll focus on that this week and end with my product of the week: a new very low-cost video conferencing system from AVer.


The Windows 10 Lever

There are undoubtedly a few million more people on Windows 10 this week than there were last week, thanks to the launch of the product. There is some breakage in the upgrade, but given the massive number of folks who made this move, it has been unusually light.

The most powerful part of this product isn't the UI fix, the various features, or the product's speed and security. It is the fact it runs on both tablets and PCs and will run on smartphones.

What this means is that at some point -- and this was demonstrated -- you could build a smartphone that effectively could become a PC. All you'd have to do is add a keyboard, mouse and monitor.

Tied to a back-end service like Frame or Dell Cloud Connect (both based on Nvidia Grid) you could have a solution that neither Apple nor Google could match: a secure, fully featured desktop client -- with power that would scale from simple tasks to full-on workstation performance -- that would fit in your pocket.

Think how wonderful that would be. Your smartphone becomes your PC, and it effectively morphs based on what you attach to it. Granted, it would mean rethinking laptops as more portable keyboards/trackpads/screens than PCs, but the end result could enable a massive transformation in the market, which would take the multiple products we now carry and turn them into one product that we'd accessorize.

If Microsoft were to bring that to fruition, it would render PCs and smartphones as we know them obsolete -- and that potentially would provide a path back to dominance and relevance.

Apple Is Better Positioned

However, this strategy moves up from smartphones, not down from PCs. I'm not envisioning taking a PC and turning it into a smartphone, but rather turning a smartphone into a PC, and that means it would be best to start with a strong position in smartphones. That is what Apple has and Microsoft lacks, which means that if Apple were to do the same thing with iOS, it could displace Microsoft more easily than Microsoft could displace Apple. But it won't.

That's because Apple's model is based on customers buying a lot of products from Apple -- not just one -- and as a result, it will be unwilling to abandon OS X in favor of iOS for fear of losing all or most of its PC revenue. There clearly would be an offset for new accessories, but Apple isn't thinking about collapsing its product line.

It is working on increasing it, and the Apple Watch implementation is an example. It could have been a phone replacement product -- but instead it's an accessory, so you need to buy the watch and the phone.

So, while Apple could execute a very similar strategy and do more damage to Microsoft than Microsoft initially could do to Apple -- it won't.

Why Not Google?

Oh, and while Google could do this as well, the father of Chrome OS is running its operating system business. He'd have to replace Chrome OS with Android -- and no one gives up his own product that easily.

So, Google is out of this chase as well. The company has been considering a converged OS platform -- but Android is already in trouble. If a pivot to a new OS were executed badly, it could knock Google out of the market. Developers have been complaining that they haven't been making money on Android for some time, suggesting that many might not spend the money to migrate their products to a new OS.

So, even though Google could do this, its developer foundation may not be solid enough to make the pivot it would have to make. Also, the pivot it should make -- off Android -- is distasteful.

Android is under a bit of an ugly cloud at the moment. Most of the firms I work with appear to be losing money on the platform, and its security issues are legion, providing an unprecedented opportunity for both Apple and Microsoft (not to mention BlackBerry).

Microsoft's Reverse Pivot

So, Microsoft, rather than using the smartphone to take over PCs, is on the more difficult path of using the PC to take over the smartphone. The best way to do this would be to partner with Intel again to make the move, given that Intel also is spending a fortune to penetrate the smartphone segment. With their combined resources, the firms could fund a massive effort.

There has been an historic feud going on between Intel and Microsoft. However, with the replacement of both CEOs, there now is a great opportunity for them to come together, much like they did when the PC was born, to once again redefine personal computing as mostly mobile. (Well, the market kind of already did that, but I mean on Intel and Microsoft technology -- not on ARM and Apple tech).

Windows 10 is the best shot Microsoft has had this decade to take tech market momentum back from Apple.

Wrapping Up

Microsoft's strategy of using its PC position to attack smartphones is a good one; it's just that both Apple and Google are in better positions to pull off the opposite. Both are stronger on the target smartphone platform today -- although Google's strength is falling like a rock at the moment.

This battle likely will be defined more by what these vendors choose not to do than what they choose to do. Microsoft will have to push smartphones harder than it ever has and get powerful help from someone like Intel to pull it off -- and it might not.

Apple would have to accept the cannibalization of Macs by iPhones, and it really won't want to do that.

Google would have to fix its developer problems or pivot off Android, not the Chrome OS, and it likely won't do that either.

In the end, the future most likely will belong to the company with the balls to take the big risk (or the one that is already dominant). Google, not Apple, is the most at risk. The next few years should be really interesting.

Facebook Reveals Its First Full-Size Internet Drone

Facebook took another step toward its goal of connecting all of the world’s citizens to the Internet.

On Thursday, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg announced that they finished constructing their first full-scale prototype of Aquila, a solar-powered, unmanned aircraft that could someday provide Internet access for people living in places lacking the infrastructure required to surf the Web.

Way High Wi-Fi

Engineers at Facebook hope to deliver on their promise by building very large, yet lightweight, aircraft that use lasers to transmit data. The Aquila, according to Zuckerberg, has the wingspan of a Boeing 737 but weighs as much as a Toyota Prius. It can also stay airborne for up to three months. It also flies really, really high: 60,000 to 90,000 feet, which is head and shoulders above commercial airline traffic.

Facebook envisions sending a fleet of these unmanned craft into the sky. A ground station would feed a radio Internet signal to a mothership plane, which would, in turn, relay that signal via lasers to secondary planes in the network, tasked with beaming the signal back down to Earth in select locations. The arrangement would create an airborne infrastructure that provides Internet access to previously inaccessible places. Zuckerberg, in his announcement, said his team has successfully tested a laser system that can transmit 10 gigabits of data per second, which is blazing fast.

However the craft can’t just be thrown into the sky like a hobbyist drone because it’s so large and fragile. Its designers plan for Aquila to hitch a ride on a helium balloon to reach an altitude of about 70,000 feet, at which time Aquila will detach and start cruising. Facebook completed its first test flight on a smaller prototype in March. The company will begin test flights of its full-size drone later this year.

Connecting the World

The ambitious drone plan is just one facet of Facebook’s Internet.org initiative, which was launched in 2013 and has already connected more than 7 million people to the Internet in underdeveloped countries. Among its many projects, Internet.org designs apps that allow people to browse health and employment websites free of data charges, and helps developers understand how to build apps so they will work in other countries. Facebook hopes to have Internet.org operating in 100 countries by the end of 2015.

As far as Aquila is concerned, she’s still a ways from active duty. Facebook will continue to fine-tune the drone’s design and improve its power and solar technology.

20 Website Design Requirements Every RFP Response Should Include

I’ve recently been talking a lot about website design requirements, proposals, and contracts. I’ve done so because I know a successful website design launch is more than software code, text, and images.

Website design success is a direct result of a structured process and solid documentation.

Executing a successful website design project begins and ends with a solid documentation. This documentation can be a proposal, contract, or statement of work. The name of the document is less important than the details contained within the document.

Whether you’re a small business or a large enterprise, documentation is the key ingredient to executing a website project that is on-task, on-time, and on-budget.

The more you document in the sales process, the more smoothly the process will go for everyone involved.

In a prior blog post I discussed the creation of a website RFP. Now that the creation of an RFP document is complete, I’d like to talk about reviewing and evaluating RFP responses.

Evaluating RFP Responses

Reviewing RFP responses sounds easy right? Well in all honesty, it sounds easier than it actually is in practice.

If the project team solicited quotes from a large number design agencies, the task of reviewing website design proposals can feel overwhelming. Ok not just feel – it can be overwhelming.

The greater the number of RFP injuries, the larger the response pool and variations within those proposals. Hopefully a short list of website developers was made prior to sending out the RFP, which will keep the number of proposals limited and make the review process a bit easier.

As websites proposals arrive, it is important to ask yourself some basic questions to get started. These include:

Was the RFP response provided within the allowed timeframe?
Was the RFP response presented in a professional manner?
Is the RFP response well written?
Does the RFP response address all website design requirements?
Is the website proposal within the project’s budget constraints?
Does the website proposal provide within the project’s timeline?
The above questions are high level questions design to help eliminate any design firm who is clearly not a fit. A late, unprofessional, or incomplete RFP response should be a red flag about potential developers. A RFP response that is priced at twice your budget, or a third of your budget, should also be a concern.

Now that you’ve received your responses and you’ve removed out any red flag vendors, it is time to thoroughly review each RFP response to compare responses in a more apples to apples manner.

Website Design Requirements to Look for in Each RFP Response

An RFP response can be of various lengths. So I won’t focus on volume of text or the number of pages. What matters is the content and the solution presented.

When reviewing RFP responses, make sure each response covers some core elements of any website project. These website design requirements include, but are not limited to, the following details:

Project Plan – This should include a high-level list of project tasks. While this won’t be as detailed as the actual project plan itself, there should be enough details for you to understand the flow of discovery, design, development, and build.
Project Management Tools – The design agency should list their project management toolset. This will vary by firm, as there are lots of great options available. The important thing is to verify there is a structure to the project management process and that tasks, owners, and dates will be well documented.
Team Members – Different design agencies will have different structures for their teams. The larger the agency, the larger the project team. It is important for you, the buyer, to know who will work on your team and to what capacity of work they will provide. You don’t need full resumes of each player, but you should know who’ll you be working with in the coming months.
Content Management System and Baseline Technology – If your website RFP did not specify a desired CMS solution, this will be an important element of your proposal. Make sure your RFP responses list out the CMS of choice and any additional technology that will be used in coding and deploying your new websites. Take special note to anything proprietary. A proprietary CMS package should be a red flag, as it locks you into that developer for the life of the website.
Deliverables – A deliverables list is important because it validates what is going to be delivered at the point of go-live. This could include number of design templates, volume of content migration, plugins utilized, etc.
Functionality List – The functionality list is very important if the website is more than a simple brochure website. The more complex the website build, them more detailed this list of functionality should be.
Content Migration – If your website project will include content migration, remember to document how much content will be migrated over to the new website. This could include pages, posts, products, events, users, attachments, and so on. Not defining the nature of the content migration and the volume of content will cause scope creep and additional costs for you or the design agency.
Image Usage – It is important to understand ownership and assignment of the images used within the website design project. Who is responsible for image selection, purchase, editing, and placement? This will vary by project so clearly define this early on in the process.
SEO – Don’t forget about SEO! This includes keyword research, keyword to page mapping, on-page optimization, meta definition, and 301 redirects. If you rely on organic SEO, protect this traffic source during your redesign. The easiest way to do this it to make sure this topic is front and center during the project scoping and proposal process.
Mobile Responsiveness – Mobile responsiveness should be part of any modern day website project. The only exception to this rule is large websites who have a separate mobile websites or apps. If you do not have a separate mobile website, make sure your proposal includes language for managing display adapted to phones and tablets.
Exclusions – While I do not list exclusions in every proposal, I do list them anytime the client and I discussed an item that is not going into the website project. This helps protect me later in the process, but also clarifies our deliverables for the client.
Third-Party Integration and/or APIs – Mid-market and enterprise companies generally have a multitude of systems and software packages within the organization. These systems need to communicate with the new website by pulling, pushing, or syncing data. If integration or APIs need to be used, make sure the proposal defines the third-party system, data points, data transfer, and responsible party.
Milestones – Milestones can help ensure the project team hits goal at each stage of the website design process before moving to the next step in the process. Typical milestones include discovery, information architecture, graphic design, theme coding, content migration, beta launch and/or testing, and go-live.
Schedule – Each website proposal response should include a schedule that corresponds to project milestones. This will help you understand how much time is allocated to each milestone and if the overall project will align to your own timetable.
Delays – Project delays can be a result of both the client and the developer. It is important to understand how these delays will be handled and how they will alter the overall project budget and timeline.
Payment Terms– Smaller website projects will tend to have a 50% payment to start and 50% payment at completion. Larger website projects will have smaller payments based on milestones or set timing. Make sure this is clearly defined within the proposal.
Expenses – Expenses could include travel, domain fees, hosting fees, plugin licenses, and/or stock images. Make sure the RFP response details out the items anticipated and the party responsible for payment.
User Training – If your users will be new to the CMS, you might want to establish some guidelines for written training documentation, online training tools, and/or interactive training sessions. Make sure the training methodology matches that of your user base.
Warranty Period – A website warranty covers the correction of software bugs within the website. It is typically established for a set period of days and stated within the proposal or contract. Such a warranty would cover coding by your website developer, but not third-party plugins or extensions.
Ongoing Maintenance – Maintenance is often confused with warranty periods, but they are very different. A maintenance agreement is paid for on a monthly or annual basis and it would be used to provide developer updates to the software over time. For WordPress websites this would include the update of the WordPress core software and any plugins installed on the website. Maintenance can also include security, monitoring, backups, reporting, and one-on-one assistance when needed.
As Needed Post-Live Support – Not every company will want or need a maintenance agreement. In lieu of a maintenance retainer, some companies will opt for on-demand post-live support. This is generally billed on an hourly basis and managed through a ticket or support system.