By Paulo Ferreira

One of the main problems facing government and its partners today is that they are often running blind: many of today’s computer systems are discrete islands of information that exist in isolation and do not communicate with each other.

What has been built is the electronic version of the old world of metal filing cabinets – there is no easy way to exchange data between systems or to implement higher-level intelligence that can make sense of the complex data that exists. There is also no easy way to enhance and upgrade these systems to include new functionalities.

On the one hand, government is looking for ways to make its internal processes and operations more efficient and more citizen-focused. On the other, truly informed business decisions and policy-making only become possible when better and more reliable information is made available across the range of government systems that contain relevant information.

Information Technology can play a far greater role than is currently the case in enabling government to organise and operate itself in a more efficient and cost-effective manner, says Dave Ives, who heads up Developer and Platform Strategy at Microsoft South Africa.

The magic word in this regard, says Ives, is interoperability – government systems’ ability to work successfully together, regardless of technology or application in use, or the vendor that has supplied the underlying system.

“Government systems are generally purchased on a solution-by-solution basis, and driven by the need to acquire the best solution for a specific purpose. The result of this is the creation of a wide range of separate information and data islands across Government, with no easy way of unlocking the valuable information assets they collectively contain to support more useful and productive processes,” says Ives.

Interoperability can help achieve government objectives by providing the ability to exchange information more effectively between systems and to make better use thereof by creating a world in which the result is greater than the sum of the parts. Specifically, successful interoperability policies:

• support important social and policy solutions, such as accessibility, user identification, privacy and security
• promote choice, competition and innovation
• reduce costs, and single vendor lock-in
• promote open access to information and address backward compatibility issues
• increase efficiency, flexibility and the value of existing investments in systems
• increase transparency to users and provide them with value-added information by bringing together data that currently exists across multiple silos

Interoperability allows government to exploit its existing investments – and provide a means of enabling those existing systems to participate in a wider ecosystem of information systems. By exploiting best interoperability practice, government systems are able to achieve improved data exchange and more integrated systems and application access. The result is more effective use of information not only within the public sector, but also between the public sector and citizens and businesses.

“Interoperability is vital in a developing country like South Africa, where we need to use our existing technology resources, which are widely different, as best as possible to drive service delivery and enhance the business and socio-economic benefits of technology,” explains Ives. 

“If you are going to commit your resources to a technology or a standard, you want to be able to reach out to the widest possible customer base that you can.”

Establishing an agreed approach to interoperability can help lead to a step-change improvement in government services through, for example, internal efficiencies and the provision of better online access. The adoption of interoperability initiatives by various governments around the world has already provided a powerful means of ensuring true interoperability across public sector systems and between the public, private and voluntary/not-for-profit sectors.

Interoperability can also play an enabling role in the delivery of e-services: whether government-to-government, business-to-government or citizen-to-government. But interoperability policies need to be based on a clear set of publicly accessible technical standards and policies that act as a foundation for the overall strategy.

Technical standards range from those defined by the numerous open standards bodies (like ISO, ECMA, ETSI, ITU and ANSI-accredited developers), to those proprietary standards adopted by companies across the marketplace. For example, HTML and TCP/IP are widely recognised open standards, while Adobe’s PDF format and the ECMA Office Open XML file formats are widely accepted standards. Yet each of these standards provides proven interoperability between different systems and applications.

However, says Ives, it is important that those standards which are adopted have widespread industry implementation or committed support; there is little point promoting the use of a standard that has not been adopted in the marketplace or which does not have good prospects of such adoption. Standards need to be fit for purpose – and work.

“We view standards as an important tool to facilitate interoperability across a wide range of products and services – but only one tool. Standards come in all shapes and sizes that range from small groups of vendors in highly dynamic undertakings to formal standardization in UN-recognized bodies,” said Ives.

“Microsoft’s work on the Ecma Open XML document formats is a good example of how we pursued formal standardization in a proactive way to address key customer interoperability requests. We made XML-based technologies a core part of the 2007 Office release, providing a foundation for a huge array of interoperability scenarios around Office 2007.”

In the past, there was a tendency to expend considerable resources on the development of unique approaches to tackling government information requirements – defining proprietary or highly-customized, so-called standards that were unique to government. This proved both expensive and ineffectual.

Not only did it result in additional ongoing costs and internal incompatibilities for government, but also caused further interoperability problems with third-party systems in the voluntary/not-for-profit and private sectors. Ultimately, argues Ives, a more cost-effective, vendor-neutral and open model is most often achieved through the adoption of industry standards.

– Written by Microsoft South Africa Platform Strategy Manager, Paulo Ferreira.