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September 04, 2002
South Dakota Puts All State Forms Online
From Al Sherwood's IT in Government Webloga piece on South Dakota putting all forms online:
PIERRE, S.D. -- Gov. Bill Janklow unveiled a one-stop Web site last week for more than 1,100 state forms.
The South Dakota Service Direct page went live on the state's Web site last Thursday, Janklow said, allowing citizens and businesses to search for and access nearly all state forms through one Web page.
Each form on the Service Direct Web site has links to information about the form, as well as a downloadable copy for printing and mailing. In many cases, officials said, the site offers a fill-in-the-blanks style online form for direct submission to the state electronically, allowing for many state forms to be processed entirely online for immediate service.
"The goal is to reduce the hassle for people," Janklow said. "This is a no-brainer."
This really is a no-brainer, as long as you can avoid arguments about what the right software is and who's going to pay. Once those issues enter into the discussion, you'd better have your brain fully engaged.
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Intel Sells Utah-based LANDesk Unit
Intel's desktop management software is developed at their Salt Lake City facility. They announced today that they're selling it to a group of venture capital companies. At least one of the companies, vSpring, is based in Utah. Utah seems to have a few companies working on desktop management software. Utah-based Altiris is another example.
I've written here before about desktop management. I believe that in the last few years the ubiquity of the network and the development of software like LANDesk and Altiris has made desktop management a real possibility. The benefits are many. Among them lower costs and increased service to employees. There's a strong resistance to this kind of change because it runs counter to conventional wisdom: more local people must mean we'll get better service, right? Regardless, I think that a move to an enterprise desktop management program is inevitable. If it doesn't happen on my watch, it will happen on the next person's. We waste a lot of time trying to swim upstream.