"MSNBC has reported that on their first day on the job, Obama's White House staffers suffered from downgrades on every front. During the campaign and the transition, Obama's team was a Mac shop; they arrived in the White House to find six-year-old Windows PCs and a mess of disconnected land-line phones. (Windows! The horror!)
Not only that -- staffers were forbidden from accessing outside email accounts or chatting online, too. MSNBC quotes one Obama spokesperson as characterizing the transition as "kind of like going from an Xbox to an Atari." Bummer.
However, Andrew Rasiej, co-founder of the blog TechPresident, notes that the President won't be as isolated as we thought. "Obama is keeping his BlackBerry, or at least that's the latest word," he says. Even still, the White House doesn't sound anywhere close to the standards of business 2.0. But what about life 2.0?
Not much better. "They are going to ban instant messaging from the White House," says Rasiej, "so staff don't get caught writing something as casually as if they were speaking it." Putting as little information as possible into digital channels means less is lost in the event of a security breach. A casual attitude towards Internet communication could spell trouble, Rasiej says."
"Luckily, Obama's staff won't be stuck in the dark ages forever. MSNBC says that White House counsel had approved the use of Gmail accounts and personal cell phones, allowing staffers -- many of whom arrived to their new offices to find neither computer nor phone -- to get communications up and running. Many of the other restrictions on White House communications can be lifted or altered with a stroke of the President's pen.
Rasiej says Wi-Fi isn't out of the question, either. "I'm not sure if the first family will have Wi-Fi access, but I don't see why not, under the right security," he theorizes. Staffers won't care either way; White House-issued laptops are reportedly scarce."
interesting look into the tech situation in the White House.
Link
White House Tech
