Written by Tod Tompkins, VP of Federal Sales, North America
The first 2012 Presidential debate was held this week. Economics and deficit reduction dominated much of the air time. (Even Big Bird weighed in on cost savings!) As expected, news outlets dissected the debate from numerous angles, fact-checking and commenting on the areas of contention. InformationWeek published “Obama vs. Romney: 6 Tech Policy Differences” on Friday. It is an interesting article that provides details around the candidates’ thoughts and the technology policy and funding implications in education, cybersecurity, telecommunications, immigration and trade. But – what about our mission critical legacy systems? I know I sound like I’m on a stump speech circuit – but it is important to discuss the mainframe-based systems and applications that run some of the most critical government programs – and how to maintain and modernize these systems to meet government’s new and evolving requirements.
On a related note, Government Executive just published an article clarifying the sequestration threat and stopgap spending measures. I encourage you to read it. Both parties, executives and technical leads, the public and private sectors all need to come together to help government reduce its costs and meet the projected budget cuts to reduce the deficit. Do you have ideas to help? Let me know your thoughts. Connect with us in the comments section below, on Facebook or Twitter.
