Federal IT spending is moving up to new levels in this new year. It is expected to grow from $73 billion in 2009 to $75.7 billion in 2010; that’s a 4% increase.A Federal IT research firm, Government Insights, has found that this increase in Federal IT spending is due to agencies investing money in new software applications that will allow more transparency and accountability, a priority for the Obama administration.
This has been a trend in the last few years – civilian agencies have had steeper increases in information technology spending than Defense. To be specific, civilian agencies account for 55% of the Federal IT spending.
Government Insights also offers some predictions for the year ahead. They predict that Web 2.0 will take a back seat to social networking. According to NextGov reports, Thom Rubel, VP of research at Government Insights says, “Social Media is creating a lot of noise as government agencies get [connected] with Facebook, Twitter.â€
Rubel continued on to state that, “Government 2.0 is dying. Some [investment in social media] will create unintended disappointments, but we don’t necessarily think that’s a bad thing. Government needs to be prepared to sort and rationalize those interactions.â€
Government Insights believes that cloud computing may also be taking a back seat in this upcoming year, but may come back in the forefront in another year or so.
