What IT Wants From The Next White House

OLI THORDARSON Bio: CEO of Alvaka Networks, Irvine, Calif. Endorsing: John McCain The Skinny: Thordarson, a reluctant McCain supporter, is deeply concerned with taxes on IT service providers like Alvaka Networks and wants guarantees that such policy is stopped dead in its tracks.

WHAT HE WANTS FROM THE NEXT PRESIDENTIAL ADMINISTRATION:

People in our industry should really be concerned with the issue of service taxation, such as a tax that was just enacted in Maryland. This is probably a potentially more directly threatening issue for the VAR/service provider/MSP community than any of the issues that a lot of people are talking about.

There has been some talk of this sort of tax happening in California, although a Republican state senator, [Tom] Harman, seemed to minimize the threat when I spoke with him recently. But if something like this takes hold and starts sweeping the country, it will be a huge issue cutting into our client's IT budgets everywhere.

Without much enthusiasm I must say I will have to back McCain, but he is not much different or much better for the IT industry than the other candidates.

Next: Lawrence Lessig