Creating a CTO position in the U.S. Government?

An interesting article appeared in Friday’s - 11/14/08 Washington Post regarding President Elect Barack Obama’s plan to appoint the nation’s first Chief Technology Officer.

According to Obama’s Website this person would help “to make government work better” by helping federal agencies use technology. It has not been determined whether this person would hold a Cabinet level position or just an administrative slot.

Another question is whether the potential CTO would be an executive from the tech sector or someone currently in the Government.

Some have mentioned current Google CEO Eric Schmidt (he has already stated he is not interested) or Vint Cerf, who is the ‘Chief Internet Evangelist’ at Google – either of these choices would have likely caused a storm anyway since Google has a major stake in how the government approaches ‘net neutrality’ and regulates broadband in general. Here is Google’s guide on Net Neutrality: http://www.google.com/help/netneutrality.html

Over the past two years Google has greatly increased its lobbying presence in D.C. With the new administration, it will be interesting to see how complex issues like ‘net neutrality’ (especially in Google’s case) are handled.

No matter what, the focus on technology in general and the possibility of appointing someone to devote more focus on how technology can help make things more efficient amongst the various government agencies seems like a good move for any administration.

Yang Giving Up the Good Fight and the Fate of Yahoo!

In Tuesday’s – 11/18/08 Wall Street Journal, it was reported that Yahoo’s co-founder will be stepping down after they find a replacement. Apparently Mr. Yang will stay on the board and remain a senior executive within Yahoo. With the rejection of the earlier Microsoft offer and now its co-founder about to step aside - the fate of Yahoo in general and whether it will remain an independent company remains unclear.

Of course the announcement on November 5, 2008 surely didn’t help (or the final nail in coffin) when Google decided to abandon their advertising partnership with Yahoo due to pending antitrust challenges by the Government. With Google essentially turning its back on Yahoo by backing away from their advertising partnership - everyone immediately speculated that Yahoo was back in play with Microsoft.

What Could Have Been

So the irony. . . because of Google’s move, the pressure on Yahoo is greater than ever for them to renew talks with Microsoft and sadly. . . get much less than the $33 per share that Microsoft had offered in May 2008.

A shame to Yahoo shareholders when you consider Yahoo’s stock as I type this is on 11/18/08 is at $11.71 per share. And, no doubt Yang has heard the roar for months from investors who kept saying he should not be the one to lead Yahoo – especially since only 66% of shareholders agreed he should stay in his current position. So, at this point – the Board is considering going with Susan Decker, Yahoo’s current president but some investors have said her former role as Yahoo’s Chief Financial Officer, still does give her enough experience to weather Yahoo’s uncertain future.

Timing is Everything

With the current economic environment and new people soon to be appointed in antitrust roles within the Government, the on-again-off-again negotiations with Microsoft remain in question. This past summer Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer mostly blamed Yang for the companies’ inability to draft an agreement. So, at this point who knows what will happen - no matter what – whether it was its partnership with Google or Yahoo being acquired by Microsoft, there will be less competition in the Internet advertising arena.

Google always trying to stay one step ahead of the game is now talking about taking their data centers where no one else dares too… the sea!  Google, in 2007 patented the first sea data center, and is not talking about moving it’s infrastructure from Sunny California for a series of barges on the sea.

The Plan
Google will utilize the oceanic movements to create its own electricity to run the new data center; and also plans on using the water below for cooling the massive center of modern technologies.

The data center would be encapsulated on a large barge (say that three times fast) and would have several electricity generating snakes behind it capturing movement from the ocean.  These wave-generating electric snakes have been in testing for sometime, below you can find a video on how they work.  The most famous is Pelamis, which is being developed by a Scottish company.  The Google model would work shockingly similar and would help sustain the massive electric needs of the new venture.

Along with electricity savings, Google would also benefit from the “free-sea” adventure by eliminating property taxes from their bottom line.  With football fields worth of servers on land, after moving these off to the high seas Google will yet again gain massive amounts of money back!

Google has yet to mention when we can expect to see this project finished or even under way, however, one thing we can be certain of, is that Google has enough funds and technology to pull this off.  If everything goes to plan we may see a whole new wave of technology companies taking their data centers to high seas in hopes of cutting costs.

Plausibility?
Many people are still skeptical (rightly so) about the new data center.  Among those are environmentalists who fear the massive amounts of heat from the server cooling system would increase the temperature of the sea and effect the wild life below; still others are worried about the amount of pollution let off into the sea from the project.  There is a lot at stake here if Google can make it work, but still the largest obstacle will be stabilizing the barge against hurricanes, tsunamis,  and other oceanic forces  that could sink the data center to an early death.

Pelamis