There is an interesting story over at
The Hill today......on how the government is failing you.....because federal workers have better computers at home.....than at the office.
I sat and read this story.....coming from Peter Orszag.....who manages the Fed bureaucracy program for the President.
Pete says that people came to work twenty years ago and found fabulous hardware and software at work.....much better than what they had around the house. Pete says that's all changed now....and you....actually have the best equipment at home.
I sat and pondered this for a while....and then started laughing.
I had the responsibility of doing lifecycle for the Air Force for almost fifteen years. I had an organization of 150 folks, and an extended group of another 200 to worry about. I started to find about ten years ago.....that most folks didn't need workstations.....they just needed regular PC's....and then I found this massive cost effort started to rapidly decrease. A regular PC ran round $750 and a workstation ran around $1700. It was simple and easy to save everyone money. The speed, the capability, and the graphics.....virtually met every single requirement that customers could dream up. Oh yeah, and yes, there were the five or six guys who had huge needs for graphics ability.....so I spent the $1700 to buy them the workstation.
As time went by, I did the same thing with printers....eventually settling on a simple HP laserjet and spent barely $1100 a printer and started to get smart about color printer requirements (we really didn't need a dozen around the entire complex....we just needed five).
In the last year.....I actually got down to a $550 PC that had all the things that a guy needed.
This story here? It's bogus. What you've got are a bunch of folks blaming their woes on computers. What the government is hooking up for you.....is a massive computer program which some player out there (maybe Dell, maybe HP, maybe IBM).....is going to get this billion-dollar contract. Yep, they figured out how to squeeze the government at the right position and get more profit.
And if you wanted to have more fun with these guys.....ask them how many of their staffs are actually familiar with Excel? I'm willing to bet that barely thirty percent of most government offices know the full capability of Excel. Ask the same folks if they know how to build a web page of any simple design.....and watch their puzzled faces show. Basically.....they have a problem....but it's a training issue....not a computer issue.
Sometimes.....you'd really like to hope in competent people working for the government. And I still have that hope....but something is telling me it's mostly a fantasy.