Microsoft Senior Director for Worldwide Licensing Solutions Kathryn Mihalich spoke with ExecutiveBiz about the challenges swirling around the current business environment.
“It is the worst economy in a generation, ” she said. “All of the CIOs or IT directors in all of the public-sector space are facing mandatory budget cuts. It is extremely important that they be very smart about their money. What is happening is a greater focus on types of contracts and how they are spending their money. It is very understandable. It is very challenging. It is challenging for the government. It is challenging for contractors in making sure that we are meeting the needs, demonstrating the value and providing the government the best long term and short term investment for the dollars that they spend. I am not really surprised by the environment; I do not think anyone actually is.”
Mihalich points out that the current environment is unlike anything she has encountered during her time in the industry.
“There is just a lot more pressure for IT to deliver high-quality services and high-quality products not only to the government, but in providing information to citizens through technology, ” she said. “I have never seen an environment like this after 20 years working in or with the public sector. We have this challenging economy, we have this focus on the budget and focus on value and on top of that we have this opportunity from I think just an overall IT perspective and service provider perspective in licensing and software for cloud computing. It absolutely is challenging and predictable.”
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