On March 20, 2007, the US Office of Management and Budget (OMB) released a directive to all federal CIOs mandating the use of common Windows XP and Vista desktop configurations for all federal agencies. Standardizing Windows desktop images is intended to help secure government IT environments and simplify application testing and deployment. However, this new initiative puts IT management under considerable pressure to meet several rapidly approaching deadlines.
Securing Government IT, One Desktop at a Time
This new OMB directive may come as no surprise to many Government IT leaders, considering that the OMB has been evaluating federal adoption of standard desktop configurations for several years. The issuing of this mandate also closely follows the recent US budgetary announcement of $65 billion for IT spending in 2008, a 3% increase from 2007, and the current administration's stated priority to dramatically improve government IT security and effectiveness.