Global CIO: IBM & Dell Get In Obama's Face With $1-Trillion Challenge

$22 billion can be saved via data-center consolidation and applications rationalization; $500 billion from supply-chain overhaul and consolidation; $200 billion from using analytics to reduce fraud and abuse; $50 billion from transitioning from paper to digital records management; and more.

But in wrapping up its op-ed piece with that ghastly description of the consequences of inaction, the Technology CEO Council is appealing to the ultimate decision-maker -- President Obama -- with a blunt and confrontational approach that the President himself used two years ago on the campaign trail when, during a stump speech in Nevada, he told his supporters to get out and talk aggressively to their neighbors: "I want you to argue with them and get in their faces."

I like the parallel stance taken by the Technology CEO Council in saying we can work together to attack these problems and return $1 trillion to taxpayers over the next decade while also giving them better government services, or we can continue on the current path of gross inefficiency, lack of transparency, and hopelessly outdated processes, and in turn face a bleak and miserable future.

As Palmisano and Dell say in their op-ed piece, "This is not just theory. We've seen both the cost savings and the innovation that these approaches can unleash -- in both the public and the private sectors."

Their companies, along with Intel and EMC and others in the group, have demonstrated their ability to deliver such results in thousands of cases around the world.

IBM and Dell and other IT companies should step forward aggressively and unashamedly with such ideas, and I hope they continue to do so and I hope many others within and without the Technology CEO Council do so as well.

Because if they don't, the White House is sure not going to come up with any $1-trillion solutions on its own -- neither this nor any other administration has the experience, the expertise, or the resources to do that.

And if the IT industry doesn't take the lead in advocating powerful solutions, here's one description of what we'll all be facing: "The alternative is to remain mired in deficit and recession, choking U.S. competitiveness and stifling the fundamental driver of our country’s growth and greatness, American society itself."

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