Technology groups continue on path to consolidation
Mergers will help industry tell its story to the Obama administration and lawmakers, executive says.
The joining of two prominent technology organizations is the latest in an attempt to present a unified voice to the incoming administration, the top executive of one of the groups said during a recent television interview.
The merger of the Information Technology Association of America and AeA -- formerly the American Electronics Association -- will bring about 2,000 member companies under one roof by the end of 2008. The Technology Association of America, as the new group will be known, will advocate programs and policies at the state, regional and federal levels, and will participate in global efforts as a member of the World Information Technology and Services Alliance.
The deal, announced on Tuesday, has been in negotiations since early fall. It comes less than a year after ITAA joined with the Government Electronics and Information Technology Association, gaining greater expertise business development, market forecasts and standards development. And in April, ITAA announced a merger with the Cyber Security Industry Alliance, which advocates internationally for the privacy, reliability and integrity of information systems.
"The technology sector has been famously fragmented and [has] really done a poor job of telling its story to Capitol Hill," said Phil Bond, ITAA president and chief executive officer, during a November interview on the C-SPAN news program The Communicators. "There has been an alphabet soup of 10 to 15 different groups saying, 'We're the voice of IT.' We've been busy consolidating some of those to say, on the big issues, there is one group that really speaks."
Bond will serve as president of the unified group, overseeing public policy, lobbying and communications. Chris Hanson, current head of AeA, will be the CEO, responsible for daily operations.
Industry sources have claimed that such mergers are a symptom of the tough times IT procurement faces, but Bond said on C-SPAN that the deals encourage more a productive partnership between government and industry and will help advance a number of the policies introduced by the new administration.
A single IT sector organization will be able to provide expertise in the types of technology President-elect Barack Obama has advocated, such as Web 2.0 collaborative online services and pervasive broadband connectivity, he said, and the unified group also will offer access to industry thought leaders who can implement such efforts.
"Let us bring in the key players from the industry and give you our perspective," Bond said. "If they're informed, nine times out of 10 policy-makers are going to come down in the right place…The American people overwhelmingly want the best of the technology sector to help government perform its mission. I think it's eminently doable [through] a combination of good will, a smart tech-savvy administration and [industry] doing a better job of telling our story."