Author Archive

Michael Garland

Founder, Garland, LLC

Michael Garland is the founder of Garland, LLC, a consulting firm that advises industry and government clients on issues related to federal procurement law and the business of IT.
Ideas

Is the government losing $500M a year in cloud savings?

COMMENTARY | Multiyear discounts enjoyed by commercial cloud customers aren't reaching the government because of federal spending laws.

Ideas

How enforceable are software licenses?

COMMENTARY | An ongoing federal court case suggests the ubiquitous practice of "pass-through" licensing for software sold by resellers may not have a solid legal foundation.

Ideas

Vendor locking in the cloud

The "bring your own licenses" lift-and-shift cloud deployment model is giving way to more restrictions as software vendors look to steer existing user bases to their own cloud offerings.

Modernization

How to fund security and modernize at the same time

FedRAMP's standards go a long way toward the security goals the White House just set -- but smaller firms must be able to afford the authorization process.

Modernization

Government needs a massive investment in FedRAMP

A well-funded shared service could relieve an authorization bottleneck and bring essential cloud services to the government market.

Cybersecurity

After Solar Winds, it's time for a National Software Security Act

The time has come for Congress to regulate security in the software industry by mandating minimal best practices for software companies selling software products or services in America.

Modernization

To save billions, let's finally put government forms to work

Reimagining form-based data collection as a shared service could transform many agencies' operations.

Modernization

Iowa and the maladministration of technology

Government agencies take note: When IT is woven into essential civic missions, failed execution can threaten the entire enterprise.

Acquisition

Government needs to get serious about IT modernization

Despite bountiful evidence of wasteful IT spending, Congress has yet to get serious about retiring the nation's antiquated IT.

Modernization

How a single update to acquisition law can support cloud adoption

Government desperately needs a better way to buy cloud services. The Section 809 panel's call to create a new contract type for consumption-based solutions is a great start.

Modernization

The government needs to be more like Netflix

To truly benefit from shared services and the cloud, agencies should be building a repository of "microservice" business routines.

Modernization

It's time to fix our cloud procurement problems

Cloud presents some unique problems for contracting officers, and addressing those ambiguities would pay big dividends.

Modernization

What to make of OMB's software licensing initiative

While most of the IT community was Christmas shopping, the Obama administration unveiled a plan that could radically reshape IT acquisition.

Acquisition

A better path to fair and reasonable pricing

The Commercial Sales Practices approach sets a trap that can snare even diligent contractors. Government and industry both deserve a smarter solution.

People

Why acquisition reforms fall short

After two decades of good intentions, it's time for an enterprise strategy for IT acquisition and management.

Modernization

Time to kill 'the cloud'

The technology itself is transformative, but Michael Garland argues that the term creates problems and confusion.

Acquisition

Making the government the market of first resort

Rather than spend time and money adhering to the government's rigid procurement requirements, innovative new companies should have the ability to graduate into compliance.