Technology

Focusing on ends rather than means

By James Smith | 1 August 2008

A shift to local government delivery, and a rapidly converging IT ecosystem is pressuring the region’s public sector to think strategically rather than tactically about the role of IT, says Microsoft’s point man for public sector, Ralph Young. Interview: James Smith.

View photos

Related Articles

• Accessing Chinese patient records on the move

Related Categories

• TECHNOLOGY

From this Section

• INTERVIEW

When you run the global public sector efforts of a major IT company, you have to do a lot of listening. For Microsoft’s Ralph Young, Vice President of Public Sector, the feedback he gets from public sector administrators in Asia reflects the region’s appetite for learning, willingness to embrace the new, as well as a more general need for government in particular to be seen to be responsive to changing citizen demands.

“When you meet with government officials the dialogue is a very rich one, which reflects the priorities of the region, and the issues of the region,” said Young, in interview at the recently concluded Government Leaders Forum in Jakarta. “Every region has its own themes and priorities, as well as an underlying constant: providing a more transparent and efficient government. ICT can help tremendously.”

Think local FutureGov has been tracking the rise of local government spending in the region for the past two years. Although the provision of services at the layer of government closest to the citizen generally makes sense from the perspective of responsiveness and transparency – the local government tier is also much more challenged for financial and human resources.

“Yes, we see this across Asia, and the world for that matter, this downward pressure from federal to local and regional government to enhance the service level between government and citizens,” agrees Young. “About 80 per cent of the transaction between government and citizens is happening at the local level, and local government is much better positioned to deliver those services.”

One of the results of the consumer electronics boom has been a greater sense of citizen confidence in their use of technology, and how they want to use that technology to interface with government.

“You see this upward pressure from citizens themselves, something that is defining a new service level requirement. We have identified this expectation challenge and have put in a lot of work with governments in the region to meeting this,” he adds.

Because the services provided by local government are generally the same throughout a country, you risk a costly duplication of effort as local governments create bespoke administrative silos in their jurisdiction. Conversely there is also the potential for a common, ‘templated’ approach to delivering citizen services. Needless to say Young spies a bright future for Microsoft as the provider of interoperable platforms for local government.

As an example Young cites the city of Songdo, 40 miles (64km) southwest of Seoul, which last month announced ambitious plans to deploy Microsoft’s Citizen Service Platform. The US$35 billion development of this new ‘International Business District’ will provide homes for 65,000 people, and be the workplace for 300,000 people when it is completed in 2015.

“The technology that we have integrated will be the platform for citizen service delivery in Songdo,” he says. “We can continue to develop a set of templates that represents the most common interactions between government and citizens.”

Keeping up with IT It’s not just that the actors on the stage are changing, as regional and city governments step up their competition with one another to retain and attract talented citizens – but the parameters of the technology debate are undergoing a fundamental shift too.

Young paints a picture of four distinct computing models – desktop, enterprise, devices and web computing. Desktop refers to PC-based applications, such as Adobe’s Acrobat Reader; enterprise relates to the big software vendors like Oracle, SAP and Sun; devices relates to Sony, Nokia and whole host of consumer electronics companies; and web computing relates to companies like Google, Amazon and Yahoo!

“But these four distinct computing models are converging, and this is happening right now,” he argues. “And if you look at the set of companies that have really developed a great capability in each of those models – only Microsoft has assets and knowhow and experience across all those areas today. Not sure about devices? We have 25 million Windows Mobile phones today – and this will grow to 40 million this year.”

There’s certainly no doubting that computing is headed into the cloud – though the exact form that will take will depend on how much more effectively Microsoft is able to compete in the advertising-driven software as a service space. Winning hearts and minds in the consumer space for free services is one thing, but when it comes to big enterprise – especially public sector – administrators are looking for effective solutions, not freebies.

“I believe that you will see a combination of these four computing models along the lines of ‘software plus services’. The Citizen Service Platform is an example of that – where information is held by the organisation, and kept sacred and private, and yet is able to interact irrespective of the device, and have many of these services delivered in the cloud.”

As this shift occurs, no matter whether it adheres to Microsoft’s vision of the future or not, governments are going to have to reexamine how they structure their services. Like it or not, government services are being ‘consumerised’ from the outside in, and civil servants are going to have to run to keep up with the expectations of their civil masters.

“I’m seeing a shift in governments around the world – and that shift is how they think about technology. It used to be that technology was there to automate existing processes. But more and more I see governments thinking about technology as an enabler of things they couldn’t do before. Governments are starting to use ICT strategically rather than tactically. And that’s got to be good for citizens everywhere.”

QUESTION & ANSWER: What matters most to Asian governments? “We’re finding a couple of main themes. The first of these is serving the citizen. Governments across Asia are focused on two things right now, better citizen services – and how you achieve that. The second is about building capacity, how you ensure that the skills in the workforce in a country are the skills are that will enable that region to compete in the 21st century.

Open source used to be the enemy. What’s changed? “Our perspective on open source has changed for several reasons. It is less of a religious debate today than it was two years ago. The issue is now much more clearly ‘Am I choosing the best architecture for my needs?’ Governments have become less religious about it. They’re looking for solutions and looking for value. In education, for example, it is much more about ensuring that technology has an impact on improving learning outcomes. There is so much more to this than the licensing model.”