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by mi100hael 2163 days ago
Biggest question in my mind is why state bureaucrats are given the latitude to think it's a good idea to build their own one-off solutions. There are 50+ markets for these sorts of systems. It makes absolutely zero sense for them each to build & maintain their own software products. Of course big consulting firms are going to _leap_ at the opportunity to bill $50M per state and then throw together products as cheaply as possible.

States need to start working together on these platforms with in-house technical teams that can actually own the systems long-term. Or we need to make it far easier for them to purchase SaaS products like any sane private market.
1 comments
phonon 2161 days ago
That's something they've been working on since 2010. See http://www.itsc.org/itsc%20public%20library/NationalViewUI_I...

And what http://www.itsc.org/ and https://www.naswa.org/ are supposed to help with.

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mi100hael 2160 days ago
NASWA is good at facilitating knowledge-sharing, but they are no better equipped to build a software product than any state IT department. Each state is still ultimately handling "modernization" in their own way. There's very little appetite for COTS for whatever reason, and little sharing of technical components between states.
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phonon 2159 days ago
If a motivated small company wanted to work with NASWA in a "not business as usual" approach, perhaps with 18F involved, I believe it could be done. Part of their role is to reduce duplicative efforts across states and try to establish best practices.

The problem of course is how many small companies are knowledgeable about the UI IT systems, and can put together a strong proposal? It's a bit chicken and egg. Yes, NASWA could push this harder if they really wanted to, but it's hard to manage a consensus oriented organization.

(I was not implying NASWA was going to build things themselves...though if I were king, I would have them develop an open source UI platform, and then give it to the states to customize for their individual scenarios. Companies could compete on how well they make those customizations, and support contracts. Of course the trend seems to be going in the opposite direction, unfortunately... c.f. VistA -> Cerner).

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