cynicism regarding IT summit

MacDailyNews offers a cynical view of this week's meeting between President Obama and executives of various IT companies, at which Peter Orszag, Director of the Office of Management and Budget, stated that the technology used by federal employees had fallen behind, that they typically have better computers at home than at work, and that this situation results in inefficient government operation, meaning that taxpayers aren't getting full value from their tax dollars.

Those participating included CEOs of Adobe, Craigslist, Facebook, Microsoft (cue eerie music and file photos of Steve Ballmer sticking out his tongue), and Monster.com. Note no mention of Apple, presumably because Steve Jobs wasn't present. It's very likely that someone else from Apple, perhaps even Phil Schiller, was in attendance, despite that Apple is less than two weeks away from one of its biggest product introductions ever. And even if not, you can bet that, as with CES, Apple was the 800-pound gorilla in the room, the company with the best answers to questions about how to make information technology really useful, including in the context of government, answers like the Mac mini with OS X Server (unlimited license) for $999. That's a lot of workgroup leverage for not very much money, something sure not to escape the notice of government buyers.