The state of state government IT.

• Position: News & Numbers - Information technology - Brief Article

A recent poll of state chief information officers and technology vendors sheds some light on what these influential leaders think about future trends in government technology. Governing magazine Editor and Publisher Peter A. Harkness conducted the electronic survey during a session of the National Association of State Information Resource Executives Midyear Conference in Pittsburgh.

Interestingly, 79 percent of the state CIOs indicated that state fiscal troubles and the threat of terrorism present "a rare time of real opportunity to bring about change." Even so, more than half of the CIOs said they were concerned about the vulnerability of state systems (56 percent) and the effect of retirement on the government IT workforce (58 percent). The most significant barrier to taking full advantage of information technology in government, they indicated, is fragmentation.

The vendors agreed that fragmentation is the most significant obstacle to improved performance in the public sector. In terms of government IT, the vendors said governments have the most...