Gov't software development a lot cheaper?

Currently, government pays a lot of money for software that's frequently late and might not do the job.

However, Internet style technology might offer a path to getting it done more effectively, cheaply, and on time.

Sunlight Foundation sponsored the development of a Federal contracts database, to show where that money goes. That cost around $300,000, though the gov't had allocated $12,000,000.

Now, California has allocated $50,000,000 for a unemployment check-processing system, and Vivek Wadhwa, a successful VC, has proposed that Silicon Valley teams develop their own bids. Two have come in at the $5,000,000 level.

Around the country, I also see AppsForDemocracy efforts and Hackathons which are delivering really good software for near zero costs.

When I was young, I did software development, and now I see the new generations of tools and methodologies, and this seems real credible to me.

Ongoing story, let's see what happens…