Quote of the week
“Cloud is an old, tired debate.”
– Vivek Kundra
Editor’s Corner
You may remember Vivek Kundra as the U.S. federal government Chief Information Officer. He was a champion of open government.
Kundra criticizes what he calls the “IT cartel.” In a New York Times article he talks about how this so-called cartel encourages government to use old and inefficient systems that are “expensive to purchase and maintain.”
So when it comes to cloud, he argues, there should be no debate. He suggests it is more secure than traditional computing, and is cheaper and more efficient. In short, it’s a no brainer.
At the World Economic Forum, he noted that technology leaders around the world were committed to cloud computing and that what is needed is a “global cloud first” policy. Such a policy would force governments to work out issues such as the movement of data between nations.
The Government of Canada has taken some steps in this direction, getting agreement from departments on issues such as definitions and has a roadmap for moving in this direction.
Of course, being Kundra, he wants to go even further: “The more interesting question is: so now you’ve abstracted your core infrastructure – let’s say you’re in the cloud – what is the real transformation point?”
He’s now looking to government to post code for custom-built apps that will allow citizens to interact with government applications.
The man is a true visionary.
