Forman calls for industry to provide IT solutions, commercial best practices

President Bush's new budget plan calls for industry to provide federal agencies with information technology solutions tailored to the government's needs, a White House official told technology executives Feb. 5.

Mark Forman, the administration's point person on IT and e-government, said $30 billion of the $52 billion requested for IT in the president's fiscal 2003 budget will go toward projects that solve problems and help agencies achieve their goals.

"That's ... money we're not spending just to put a PC on somebody's desk, but literally a solution to a business problem," he said. "It is critical that as we look at this big increase, you provide us the best practices of the commercial world to address our needs."

Forman spoke at the White House Conference Center to reporters and members of several industry groups, including the Industry Advisory Council, Government Electronics Industry Association and Information Technology Association of America.

The president's budget request, unveiled Feb. 4, included $52 billion for IT, up from the $45 billion spent in 2001 and $48 billion that will be spent in 2002. The $7 billion increase over 2001 is largely because of new spending on homeland security and the war on terrorism, Forman said.

Forman asked vendors to study the document, "Performance Information for Major IT Investments," as they prepare bids to see where they could help agencies use IT to improve their performance. The document is available at www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2003/index.html, along with a program-by-program breakdown of federal IT investment.

The government needs these types of solutions, Forman said:

*Knowledge management
*Cybersecurity
*Process integration
*Supply chain management
*Training
*Human capital management
*Information sharing

The administration's efforts to eliminate redundant and duplicative IT systems will likely result in increased competition among its contractors, Forman said.

"While, on the one hand, you can look at it as winners and losers, I think it's fair to say with the increase in the budget that there is more than enough work to go around," he said. "You may not be doing the same thing you were doing last year because somebody else does it a little better; we'll ask you not to give up on servicing the federal government, but come back with an idea to do it better or do something else better," he said.