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GCN Home > 08/01/05 issue

Texas bets on a unified infrastructure

By William Welsh, PostNewsweek Tech Media

Dustin Lanier knows it won’t be easy getting more than 200 agencies to turn over responsibility for their IT infrastructure to the Texas Department of Information Resources when a new state law takes effect Sept. 1.

Texas, in fact, is bucking a trend: Some of the largest states in the nation have been unable to consolidate IT infrastructure and buy IT products and services in volume. Three years ago, the California Information Technology Department closed shop, and last month the Florida State Technology Office shut down less than a year after a statewide outsourcing contract unraveled.

The Texas law, signed June 18 by Gov. Rick Perry (R), gives the department sweeping authority over the statewide IT infrastructure and services. And it could save the state nearly $25 million by 2007, said Lanier, the department’s director of strategic initiatives.

New power

The law tackles IT infrastructure and services delivery on many fronts, such as requiring agencies to buy computer hardware and technical services from cooperative contracts negotiated by the department.

It gives the Information Resources Department the power not only to consolidate data center equipment and operations, but also to create so-called state technology centers that would consolidate infrastructure in such areas as network security, electronic grants and telecommunications.

The new law requires agencies to sign contracts with the Department of Information Resources by March 31, 2006, establishing the terms and conditions under which the department will provide data center services to them.

But in any event, the department faces an uphill battle getting agencies to transfer their IT infrastructure resources, according to analysts and industry officials.

The more than 200 independent agencies in Texas state government are accustomed to a substantial degree of autonomy and to negotiating their own terms and conditions for IT products and services, said Len Riley, a senior consultant with the consulting firm Strategic Partnerships Inc. of Austin. The new act “will be viewed by many agencies as creating a significant change,” he said.

Gary Richardson, director of Texas operations for Northrop Grumman IT of Herndon, Va., agreed.

More news on related topics: Acquisition / Contracts, Communications / Networks, IT Infrastructure, Management, Procurement, State & Local



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