10 Technologies State and Local Governments Should Know

The challenge for government resellers is how to make sense of what might emerge--and when. Forrester Research has taken care of some of the legwork for those who practice at the smaller governmental levels, releasing a report in June called "The Top 10 New Technologies For State And Local Government." It outlines which categories of technology--some specific, some more generalized--that VARs need to keep an eye on in the coming year or so.

The report doesn't rank the technologies in order of prevalence or importance. According to co-author Mike Gilpin, Forrester's vice president and research director, "it's not based on any survey of priorities, but on looking at the technology engagements our clients are working on." That said, most resellers should be able to quickly differentiate between which ones are ongoing priorities vs. the ones that are truly in the breakthrough category. The range of technologies that various government agencies are interested in is so wide, Gilpin says, that Forrester decided to focus on the state and local levels just to get the number down to 10.

Not all these technologies are fresh from the think tank. Portals, for example, aren't particularly new, but they're becoming widely disseminated as more government agencies put things like DMV transactions or parking permit or housing deed registrations online. "Local governments are particularly focused on improving services so people can do things online that they used to have to stand in line for," Gilpin says.

The primary reason long-promised portals have arrived is that the underlying technologies that support them--including broadband networks, mass storage and network security--finally are robust enough to make them useful for large constituencies.

"Portals have been in the works for quite a while in the form of 'e-government' initiatives and the like, but now people are beginning to build the infrastructure to support them," says Mo Bakheit, practices manager for mobility and information assurances for GTSI, a Chantilly, Va.-based IT solution provider for government agencies. "Now they can provide high availability with accelerated Web-services applications and the appropriate levels of security."

GTSI has been providing IT solutions to government agencies of all shapes and sizes for some 20 years. The splashiest part of its business probably is at the federal level, where the company has begun rolling out solutions that enable tactical broadband communications for various military agencies, namely the ones fighting the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

"IP mobility, the ability to do voice, video and data on the move, is where much of our recent activity has been," says Mohammed Elrefai, a senior manager at GTSI. "The reason it's becoming more popular is because users can now roam between hot spots while keeping the same security policies."

What's enabling this is that COTS servers, the acronym for "common off-the-shelf" or "commercial off-the-shelf," now have the functionality to support the demanding needs of the military. "We're at an inflection point because COTS devices and tactical demands usually haven't been congruent but now are converging," Elrefai says. "We didn't foresee this 18 months ago, but now a lot of partners are beginning to understand that it's available."

But it's not just front-line Marines who are clamoring for this advanced technology. Back home, state and local governments are becoming just as interested in acquiring these types of tools for their police departments and firefighters. "The hottest demand for these products is among public-safety officials, the law enforcement and first-responder arena," Bakheit says.

The question for these agencies and the VARs who sell to them is how financially capable are they to acquire such tools, which depends on factors such as homeland security funding and overall budgets. "State and local governments tend to have tighter budgets than federal agencies, so a lot of their spending is focused on the need to save money," Gilpin says, adding that the flip side of this is that smaller government entities tend to have better customer service than their federal counterparts, as anyone who has ever tried to get phone help from the IRS can readily attest.

Another cutting-edge area that's becoming increasingly hot for government agencies is biometrics. Technologies such as facial-recognition cameras and 3D visualization applications already are being used in various sectors of the military, at the Department of Defense and related sectors, providing greater access control to sensitive facilities.

This is another example of a technology that, at first glance, might seem to be too expensive for state and local agencies. True enough for now, but the increasing emphasis on security at state and local levels means we might soon see such tools providing assistance to law enforcement or regulating access to local courthouses.

The Cupertino, Calif.-based A4vision develops advanced biometric communications systems for government agencies and the private sector. CEO Grant Evans says we may see many of the company's solutions at the state level sooner than expected. "The mainstream infrastructure isn't yet up to the corporate enterprise level, but a lot of people are looking at biometrics closely, and we'll start to see widespread adoption within 12 to 18 months," he says.

Among the more everyday applications, one way state and local governments are trying to improve customer service is through call-center applications using tools such as VoIP. "Call centers have been significant in the business world for some time, and now they're becoming a significant opportunity for governments to save money," Gilpin says. "The technology is getting to the point where it's very proven, accessible and deployable in the real world."

As the reliance on technology such as portals, Web services and more sophisticated networks increases, state and local governments also must deal with integration headaches similar to what their federal counterparts endure. And even though it might be easy to assume that the average state government can't possibly have the integration hassles of large federal agencies, in some cases the exact opposite is true. "State governments face similar integration problems as groups like the federal intelligence community does," Gilpin says. "The daily tasks they're trying to accomplish might be more mundane, but it's a tough integration challenge because different departments get their budgets from different sources, so the resources each agency has to spend don't always match up."

In addition to integrating portal platforms and ramping up Web services, state and local governments also are beginning to adopt more recently developed technologies, particularly in the wireless LAN area. According to the Forrester report, "Wireless LANs, once a nuisance to be controlled or eliminated, are now a real business tool that can be effectively managed in an enterprise context. This has been brought about not only by the maturation of standards such as 802.11g and 802.11i, but also by the continuing innovation by vendors in equipment that aims specifically at enterprise usage and security."

Bakheit says the introduction of the 802.11i standard cleared what had been an almost insurmountable hurdle to widespread wireless adoption. "It's the reason for the greater velocity in wireless LAN adoption because it fixed an inherent flaw--that there wasn't a common protocol for total mobility solutions in previous wireless standards," he says. "Prior to this, the federal government considered wireless LANs so risky that it put a moratorium on them for all its agencies. But now with the advent of IP satellite communications, we can have a common protocol for roaming between locations, and we should see products hitting the market sometime around October."

As is the case with any technology or market sector these days, security is a top priority for everyone. Forrester calls security "one of the top concerns for most governmental organizations" and lists identity management and content security as two of the hottest areas. But somewhat surprisingly, Gilpin says state and local governments aren't much more worked up about security than the average bank or retailer. "Security is a hot topic for everyone because governments feel their systems aren't as protected as they need to be," he says, "but security isn't any more important to governments than for anyone else."

Technologies To Transform State And Local Government
1. Composite applications, portals and collaboration technology. Portals and collaboration technology, together with standards for integration like Web services, are driving a surge in the creation of what many call composite applications, ones that typically support broad, cross-functional business processes and promote collaboration among workers and citizens.

2. Content-centric applications. The integration of content and data are increasingly important issues for IT in the public sector because Internet applications increasingly encompass content, resulting in an increased need to integrate multiple types of content into a more unified strategy around XML and structured and unstructured content and data.

3. Service-oriented architecture (SOA), Web services and application integration. Playing out in the most strategic product lines of BEA Systems, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, Sun Microsystems and others, SOA is delivering dramatic improvements in business flexibility, closer integration of business and technology goals, and more rapid response to changing business requirements.

4. Agile processes and IT process improvement. Pressures on IT organizations have increased the number of organizations that have active efforts under way to improve processes. A key part of this trend is a "cafeteria" approach that takes some of the more acceptable elements while avoiding the more radical ones. There also is strong interest in methodology customization and method/process integration.

5. Open source. One of the most rapidly changing areas in IT; this is an implementation issue for many, if not all, leading organizations. Cost reduction is an early motivator, but flexibility often is the most valuable benefit.

6. RFID and other X-Internet technologies. The possible uses of RFID technology include first-response service systems--including emergency medical services, fire and rescue, law enforcement and disaster management. RFID technologies also have many potential applications in health and human services.

7. VoIP, voice/speech and voice/data technology, and contact center refresh. VoIP is particularly valuable in integrated contact centers and other customer/citizen-facing technologies like instant messaging, cross-channel integration and a general focus on improved customer service. Speech technologies in the contact center also are undergoing a generational change.

8. Organic IT. Includes automated systems management, the virtualization of storage and computer grids, and the use of blades to scale out the data center with commodity hardware. Broad and real application of the technology is driving rapid innovation. The focus has shifted from grid and utility computing to management automation.

9. Identity management and content security. Two of the hottest areas within security are identity management and content security around spam, worms and e-mail virus propagation.

10. Wireless LANs. Once a nuisance to be controlled or eliminated, wireless LANs are now a real business tool that can be effectively managed in an enterprise context.
Source: Forrester Research