Don’t go boating without a life jacket. And, don’t collect, store, or try to manage data without an Information Governance strategy. […]

Has government procurement lost its rudder completely? Stand aside the $500 hammer and golden toilet seat – seems IT procurement is all at sea. […]

There’s an arms race going on like we haven’t seen since the Cold War: HP, IBM, Amazon, and Google. They’re knocking together data centers quicker than the price of cloud computing can plummet. […]

Every day you shave or powder your face in the mirror, put on a smile, and head out to make the doughnuts. But, what if you could get paid for doing nothing? And not just get paid, but earn millions? That’s precisely what fraudsters are doing every day in America. And, who are the dummies […]

2014 is a tipping point. For the first time, IT will serve more pages to phones than PCs. So, aren’t phones cloud devices? Sure we’ve wrestled with Hunger Games horrors, but most everybody’s dialed into the mobile cloud. […]

Did you know that the Union Jack – made famous by the Red Coats, Reebok, and Austin Powers – is in peril? On September 18, Scotland goes to the polls to vote on independence from the “United Kingdom” – or, more accurately, England. […]

I’d give my right arm to be ambidextrous. If you look at what ails Fed IT, it’s not tech – you can distill it down to communications and finance. […]

Not as charged as Palestine and the Ukraine, Federal cloud is nevertheless disputed territory. Released three and a half years after OMB issued the “Cloud First Policy”, a new MeriTalk study “Cloud Confusion: Is Private Cloud Holding Feds Back?” provides a sanity check on Uncle Sam’s cloud progress. […]

Ever wonder about the validity of social media? What’s the moniker – trust but verify? I’ve always had my suspicions about Facebook Likes. […]

You may think that 238 years ago, your ancestors sent my ancestors packing. On the 4th, I like to remind folks I’m Irish. All this independent spirit inspired MeriTalk to question the tyranny of yesterday’s IT in D.C. […]

Is it me, or is it slow in Fed IT? Maybe it’s because everybody’s watching the World Cup? Worldwide viewership is four times that for the Olympics – and global productivity will drop four percent this month. […]

CDM is all about numbers – $6 billion, 17 primes, legions of subcontractors, and one big question. Is the shiny new program making Uncle Sam’s cyber security safer? This’ll be a focal point of the Cyber Security Brainstorm on June 18 at the Newseum […]

But he’s really got it in for data centers, applications, and cost. In a world of posturing and politics, I’d like to take a minute to salute Terry Halvorsen as he steps into Teri’s shoes as DoD IT tzar. With the challenges in DoD computing, Terry may quickly develop a bunion. We know he’s already recovering from Achilles surgery. […]

While the weather’s tip top, the May 7 Senate Appropriations Subcommittee Hearing on Federal IT investments would have left Bill Murray with a chill. While the Ghostbuster suffered Groundhog Day in Punxsutawney, even he’d be scared by the déjà vu in D.C. […]

So, you think you know Walter Bigelow at ATF&E? Former Army, DoD, and NASA, he’s the sober hand in Uncle Sam’s most combustible IT shop. […]

Elvis released “Hound Dog”on June 5, 1956. OMB picked the same date, 58 years later, for its FedRAMP deadline. Will it be a hunk or a howler? […]

J, P, G, or R? Do You Want to Know a Secret? It’s 50 years since Shea Stadium. She Was Just 17 – and so’s O’Keeffe & Company, MeriTalk’s sister organization. They Say It’s Your Birthday. So, we’re hosting the Fab 4 on May 15 at the State Theatre in Falls Church. You’re invited to […]

The National Defense Authorization Act for 2012 requires GAO to provide DoD with an annual IT management physical. The components need to give blood, cough, and pee in a cup to ensure they’re healthy on IT cost and schedule, as well as on track to deliver functionality and performance. […]

If an apple a day keeps the doctor away – seems a storage array will pick you right up. That, according to the new Big Data Cure study just prescribed by MeriTalk. The report’s based on a survey of Fed execs working in agencies with healthcare missions. […]

My mother told me it was good to share my toys. Seems Uncle Sam can cut costs by sharing tech toys. That, according to a new MeriTalk study – Shared Services: Ready or Not?. […]

Let’s change gears for this week’s circuit. Chance to step outside the Beltway and look under the hood in the mega-billion dollar state and local IT race. How’s transformation going – what’s fast and who’s furious? […]

Big data is good. Curing cancer. Trapping terrorists. Avoiding Armageddon. […]

There’s been hysteria about the grey tsunami since before I had grey hair. But, today seems Uncle Sam’s IT is really drowning in a digital-drop-out deluge. By all reports, Fed IT execs line up to jump overboard from the USS ITanic. And, it’s not just grey beards – young IT leaders are pulling on life […]

The basis of this idiom is, you get nothing for nothing. Well, I’m going to take a bite out of that one. Next week is Telework Week. And, while the ethics rules are clear about the fact that you can’t buy Feds a fancy lunch, it seems Feds will pocket some nice change from Telework Week. […]

FedRAMP has been around for a while – and there’s a good bit of confusion. You can read the manual – but at 49 pages and growing, it’s not exactly a page turner. There are three flavors of approved FedRAMP CSPs. So far, we think we have 11 cloud service providers – 10 industry and USDA. […]

Between FISMA, Continuous Monitoring, HSPD-12, et al – Feds are adopting a belt-and-suspenders approach to security. And, if that wasn’t enough, Snowden’s taught the Prez about DLP. […]

I’m in the middle. I wore my brother’s hand-me-downs. I had to sit between my brother and sister on road trips. PaaS is the middle child in the Fed cloud family. Stuck between IaaS and SaaS, all too often, he’s overlooked by his Uncle Sam. […]

A picture’s worth a thousand words. What’s it they say about books and covers? […]

Elephants and donkeys play chicken. Sequestration and the shutdown are a vice squeezing D.C. It’s terrible, but what hasn’t been written about this stuff? […]

Don’t mean to rain on the parade, but what hasn’t been said about cloud computing? How about are Federal agencies making any real progress in cloud and are we saving any money? That, and the new Cloud Computing Caucus, are on the menu as Fed cloud leaders and the Hill huddle at the Newseum in […]