San Francisco City launches its 311 Open , online government initiative. Includes the mayor of San Francisco, Tim O'reilly and Vivek Kundra (CIO to the Obama Administration).

In my opinion this video and the speakers provide a vision for where government is going online and back it up with some great concrete examples.

This article at

 http://www.economist.com/business/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13331334

IT WAS the day Sun Microsystems was supposed to rise again. On March 18th the Silicon Valley computer-maker had planned to unveil a new online service to allow start-ups to manage with much less hardware, by buying computing capacity from a “cloud”, rather like electricity from the grid. But the event was overshadowed by the news, hours earlier, that IBM was in talks to buy Sun for at least $6.5 billion in cash, which would translate into a near-100% premium over the firm’s depressed share price in recent weeks.

As The Economist went to press, a deal had yet to be confirmed. But it is no surprise that the two firms are talking. The economic crisis has pummelled Sun, which never really recovered from the dotcom bust. As its share price plumbed new lows, IBM’s remained relatively unscathed (see chart)—a reflection of its business, which has been protected by the computer giant’s global scope and the fact that it makes most of its money from software and services.

In the months to come, more big fish will seek to swallow smaller fry. That is because something deeper is going on in the computer industry. Thanks to ever more powerful chips and new software, servers and other hardware can now be “virtualised”, meaning physically separate systems can act as one. This enables computing power to become a utility: it is generated somewhere on the network (“in the cloud”) and supplied as a service. To simplify their complex data centres and cut costs, more and more companies are thinking about building in-house computing utilities, called “private clouds”, or outsourcing computing to “public clouds” of the kind Sun launched this week.

What is more, as computing becomes a utility, the borders between different systems are starting to blur. A server, for instance, can easily function as a router (a box that directs data around networks). And this convergence means that companies that used to be allies, or in totally different markets, are now starting to compete with each other, argues James Staten, an analyst at Forrester Research.

As a result the industry’s landscape is shifting. Last year Hewlett-Packard (HP), the world’s biggest computer-maker, bought Electronic Data Systems, a big provider of computer services, giving HP more manpower to help its customers build more advanced data centres. HP has also acquired software to manage data centres and put a greater emphasis on networking gear, an important component in the computer centres that have become the heart of many businesses.

Cisco, the world’s biggest maker of routers, has responded by moving into a new area: it will soon start selling servers. Together with other firms, including BMC and VMware, it has developed what it calls a “Unified Computing System”, which was unveiled on March 16th. This is essentially a private cloud in a box. Instead of having to wire up servers, storage devices and networking gear, companies can build and reconfigure virtual computer systems with a few mouse clicks.

For IBM, the third big contender in this emerging field, part of the attraction of Sun is that it has some assets, such as networking gear and data-centre software, which would beef up IBM’s ability to build private clouds. Industry observers think IBM would probably sell many of Sun’s other businesses, however, such as its line of high-end servers. A counter-bid for Sun from HP or Cisco is also possible.

HP, Cisco and IBM (and perhaps Dell, another troubled computer-maker) are gearing up to fight what has come to be called the “war for the data centre”. Much is at stake: this year alone, companies will spend about $100 billion on data centres, according to IDC, a market-research firm. As computing moves online, however, these companies will increasingly have to compete with operators of “public clouds”. Microsoft plans to enter this field, in effect offering to run companies’ computer systems for them inside its own giant data centres. Google is gradually expanding its suite of cloud-based offerings. And Amazon, the world’s biggest online retailer, is also a pioneer in the field of cloud-computing services, which it has been offering for some time.

In a way, all this is a throwback to the era of “time-sharing” on mainframe computers. In the early days of computing, companies either had to buy a mainframe, which cost millions, or share one with someone else. Now firms will once again be confronted with this choice. Contrary to what some argue, however, big companies are unlikely to go fully either way. In fact, the computing sky will probably always be cloudy, meaning that there will be many private and public clouds, and they will come in all shapes and sizes. And most of them will be interconnected. Cisco already has a name for this computing climate: the “Inter-Cloud”.

The top ten strategic technologies for 2009 as identified by Gartner.
http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=777212

“Strategic technologies affect, run, grow and transform the business initiatives of an organization,” said David Cearley, vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner. “Companies should look at these 10 opportunities and evaluate where these technologies can add value to their business services and solutions, as well as develop a process for detecting and evaluating the business value of new technologies as they enter the market.”

The top 10 strategic technologies for 2009 include:

Virtualization.  Much of the current buzz is focused on server virtualization, but virtualization in storage and client devices is also moving rapidly. Virtualization to eliminate duplicate copies of data on the real storage devices while maintaining the illusion to the accessing systems that the files are as originally stored (data deduplication) can significantly decrease the cost of storage devices and media to hold information. Hosted virtual images deliver a near-identical result to blade-based PCs. But, instead of the motherboard function being located in the data center as hardware, it is located there as a virtual machine bubble. However, despite ambitious deployment plans from many organizations, deployments of hosted virtual desktop capabilities will be adopted by fewer than 40 percent of target users by 2010.

Cloud Computing. Cloud computing is a style of computing that characterizes a model in which providers deliver a variety of IT-enabled capabilities to consumers. They key characteristics of cloud computing are 1) delivery of capabilities “as a service,” 2) delivery of services in a highly scalable and elastic fashion, 3) using Internet technologies and techniques to develop and deliver the services, and 4) designing for delivery to external customers. Although cost is a potential benefit for small companies, the biggest benefits are the built-in elasticity and scalability, which not only reduce barriers to entry, but also enable these companies to grow quickly. As certain IT functions are industrializing and becoming less customized, there are more possibilities for larger organizations to benefit from cloud computing.

Servers — Beyond Blades.  Servers are evolving beyond the blade server stage that exists today. This evolution will simplify the provisioning of capacity to meet growing needs. The organization tracks the various resource types, for example, memory, separately and replenishes only the type that is in short supply. This eliminates the need to pay for all three resource types to upgrade capacity. It also simplifies the inventory of systems, eliminating the need to track and purchase various sizes and configurations. The result will be higher utilization because of lessened “waste” of resources that are in the wrong configuration or that come along with the needed processors and memory in a fixed bundle.

Web-Oriented Architectures. The Internet is arguably the best example of an agile, interoperable and scalable service-oriented environment in existence. This level of flexibility is achieved because of key design principles inherent in the Internet/Web approach, as well as the emergence of Web-centric technologies and standards that promote these principles. The use of Web-centric models to build global-class solutions cannot address the full breadth of enterprise computing needs. However, Gartner expects that continued evolution of the Web-centric approach will enable its use in an ever-broadening set of enterprise solutions during the next five years.

EnterpriseMashups. Enterprises are now investigating taking mashups from cool Web hobby to enterprise-class systems to augment their models for delivering and managing applications. Through 2010, the enterprise mashup product environment will experience significant flux and consolidation, and application architects and IT leaders should investigate this growing space for the significant and transformational potential it may offer their enterprises.

Specialized Systems. Appliances have been used to accomplish IT purposes, but only with a few classes of function have appliances prevailed. Heterogeneous systems are an emerging trend in high-performance computing to address the requirements of the most demanding workloads, and this approach will eventually reach the general-purpose computing market. Heterogeneous systems are also specialized systems with the same single-purpose imitations of appliances, but the heterogeneous system is a server system into which the owner installs software to accomplish its function.

Social Software and Social Networking. Social software includes a broad range of technologies, such as social networking, social collaboration, social media and social validation. Organizations should consider adding a social dimension to a conventional Web site or application and should adopt a social platform sooner, rather than later, because the greatest risk lies in failure to engage and thereby, being left mute in a dialogue where your voice must be heard.

Unified Communications. During the next five years, the number of different communications vendors with which a typical organization works with will be reduced by at least 50 percent. This change is driven by increases in the capability of application servers and the general shift of communications applications to common off-the-shelf server and operating systems. As this occurs, formerly distinct markets, each with distinct vendors, converge, resulting in massive consolidation in the communications industry. Organizations must build careful, detailed plans for when each category of communications function is replaced or converged, coupling this step with the prior completion of appropriate administrative team convergence.

Business Intelligence. Business Intelligence (BI), the top technology priority in Gartner’s 2008 CIO survey, can have a direct positive impact on a company’s business performance, dramatically improving its ability to accomplish its mission by making smarter decisions at every level of the business from corporate strategy to operational processes. BI is particularly strategic because it is directed toward business managers and knowledge workers who make up the pool of thinkers and decision makers that are tasked with running, growing and transforming the business. Tools that let these users make faster, better and more-informed decisions are particularly valuable in a difficult business environment.

Green IT. Shifting to more efficient products and approaches can allow for more equipment to fit within an energy footprint, or to fit into a previously filled center. Regulations are multiplying and have the potential to seriously constrain companies in building data centers, as the effect of power grids, carbon emissions from increased use and other environmental impacts are under scrutiny. Organizations should consider regulations and have alternative plans for data center and capacity growth.

“A strategic technology may be an existing technology that has matured and/or become suitable for a wider range of uses,” said Carl Claunch, vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner. “It may also be an emerging technology that offers an opportunity for strategic business advantage for early adopters or with potential for significant market disruption in the next five years. Companies should evaluate these technologies and adjust based on their industry need, unique business needs, technology adoption model and other factors.”