October 2013

In his first public remarks in seven months, Federal Chief Information Officer Steven VanRoekel told an audience dominated by information technology contractors that the debacle surrounding the Obama administration’s online health insurance exchange represents “a teachable moment for government.” He said the Administration should be applauded for its boldness in creating the health exchanges. He offered no explanation for why the Administration failed to adequately test the website, HealthCare.gov, prior to launching it Oct. 1, 2013, nor did he take questions from the audience.

[Commentary] The Obama Administration said that it was considering banning eavesdropping on the leaders of American allies. Is it really better for us to think that things have gone so far with the post-9/11 idea that any spying that can be done should be done and that nobody thought to inform President Barack Obama about tapping the phone of one of the most important American allies? We are not reassured by the often-heard explanation that everyone spies on everyone else all the time. We are not advocating a return to 1929 when Secretary of State Henry Stimson banned the decryption of diplomatic cables because “gentlemen do not read each other’s mail.” But there has long been an understanding that international spying was done in pursuit of a concrete threat to national security. That Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cellphone conversations could fall under that umbrella is an outgrowth of the post-9/11 decision by President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney that everyone is the enemy, and that anyone’s rights may be degraded in the name of national security. That led to Abu Ghraib, torture at the secret CIA prisons, warrantless wiretapping of American citizens, grave harm to international relations, and the dragnet approach to surveillance revealed by the Edward Snowden leaks.

Philadelphia launched a new 12-week accelerator program called FastFWD that will select 10 entrepreneurs to develop innovative projects around public safety challenges. FastFWD comes on the heels of a newly launched innovation center by North Carolina that will let the state test technologies before purchasing them. Both initiatives are attempts to ease frustration with government procurement processes that tend to discourage innovation and limit flexibility.

The traditional government request for proposal (RFP) process -- with its long timelines, complex rules and tight guidelines around liability -- tends to scare off some of the information technology industry's most innovative companies, said Dugan Petty, former Oregon chief information officer and procurement director. “You have this situation which is still going on today, where in many states there’s an effort to transfer all of the liability to the contractor,” Petty said. “And that’s got a cost that makes it exorbitant.” To help rethink some of these restrictions and find better ways to procure technology, North Carolina plans to test products before purchasing them in the state’s new innovation center. In April 2013, an audit revealed that 84 state projects were collectively $356 million over budget, a situation that state CIO Chris Estes said stems primarily from how the state procures technology. The state will use the innovation center to pilot technologies before committing to large-scale, expensive purchases.

As much as Google likes and touts that Android is open, that freedom may come with the cost of some control over the platform. Amazon may have started the first truly successful “fork” of Android, but Samsung is going after the whole place setting.

At this point, Samsung is taking advantage of its dominant position as the Android device leader to become the “de facto” Android phone and crush any remaining competition. Samsung has built its mobile business on Android and can now push forward with less “help” from Google. As long as Samsung remains a helpful partner in the Android ecosystem and properly licenses Google apps and services for devices, it’s not as if Google can wrest Android away from Samsung. Samsung has clearly become successful and profitable by pushing Android devices as well as adding its own add-on features and functions. “The new [Mobile] SDK … will make it possible to press a button on your phone to launch an online video stream, or even a game, on your TV. Sound familiar? That’s not really a coincidence -- but Samsung thinks that it can one-up its competition,” said GigaOm’s Janko Roettgers.