Does the U.S. Need a Tech Czar?

CIO magazine says we need one in an extensive piece. 

CIO suggests the Czar should:

• Develop a strategic plan for technology in the United States.
• Serve as a portfolio manager for government sponsored R&D projects.
• Coordinate technology policy across governmental agencies.

The piece lists the competitiveness threats that the U.S. if facing in the global market -- particulary from China, the defragmentation of tech policy management in the federal goverment and provides a useful look back and past efforts where the the government and industry worked together to combat competive threats (tech policy existed prior to 1995, after all).

Also, the story provides some interesting factoids from a survey of CIOs...

...Namely:

Forty-one percent of the 402 CIOs surveyed predicted that the United States would no longer be the world's technology innovation leader 15 years from now. And 60 percent of these respondents said they would like to see the federal government institute a coherent technology policy that sets specific goals for areas such as Internet access, cybersecurity, spam, and research and training.

CIO says this is a change of heart:

While previous polls by CIO indicated that many CIOs preferred a hands-off approach by the federal government, a new survey shows that many now advocate a more proactive stance.

And, remember that CIOs aren't necessarily mouthpieces for the technology industry.  Rather, they are more likely to be the purchasers and managers of tech products and services for non-tech focused operations.

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[William Brown]

that sets specific goals for areas such as Internet access, cybersecurity, spam, and research and training.

[Shuji]

argument may have worked 20 years ago, but it falls over flat in the face of raitilees today. Large companies are just as likely to go under and stop product support, be acquired and force a transition to a new product, whether or not the customer asked for it. Oracle is the primary example of this latter behavior, and there are lots of examples of the former. Large companies do not provide peace of mind in that rapidly changing business conditions will often result in critical to some-business' product going away, without support.Moreover, in a world where all chips are effectively Intel or AMD, all hard disks are effectively the same, all boxes (you know, from the big vendors) are actually built by 3 contract manufacturers it is hard to make a reasonable argument that there is larger risk in adopting better technology, than there is in adopting branded technology.The cheaper portion isn't the only or primary aspect. But it is important in the mix. Our solutions represent less risk as they are open, and based upon open technologies, so if we go under, others can support them. Try that with our competitors proprietary boxes.At the end of the day, any closed/proprietary solution represents a risk and business dependency danger in the face of un-forseen business changes on the part of the supplier. Suppose Sun is successful in getting a world wide shipping injunction against NetApp. How happy will the proprietary NetApp customers be, when business conditions forbid them from getting support/service? At the end of the day our solutions offer lower overall risk and lower overall cost, as well as higher performance. The argument that peace of mind occurs with the other vendors is weak. We have support programs we have designed to address the fact that we don't have a world-wide support organization. How do you solve the problem of fixing a remote machine in the event of an issue? Turns out the solution is quite easy, and lower cost to set up and operate than the 24x7x4 type solutions. Our customers seem to like it better, as the time to solution is measured in minutes in most cases, not in hours for first callback, and days for actual solution.So with all due respect, I disagree with your premise.