Megan Smith, the former Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL) (NASDAQ:GOOG) executive, who is working in the capacity of chief technology officer at the White House since past four months is still struggling with the ‘culture shock’ and the outdated technology at the seat of executive power.
She is required to use bulky and outdated laptops (2013 Dell laptop) on daily basis along with BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) (TSE:BB) devices, and she wants the White House to update to modern technology.
Huge efforts required
She observed that a considerable part of work in Obama’s administration is still performed with the floppy disks. In an interview to the New York Times, she told, “We’re on it.”
White House has been suffering from technology problems, but none of the earlier CTOs bothered correcting the issue at all. The post of chief technology officer was created by Obama around five years back for overseeing the IT efforts made by the administration. Unfortunately, no major change took place at the White House since then.
Smith has no substantial funding stream despite having a direct line to the president. The staff working under Smith consists of around a dozen people. Her office is very near to the president’s home, just next door. Eisenhower Executive Office Building is the place where open plan office of Smith is located and outside its four-walls she has very little authority.
The problem is entirely with the tools and means allocated to her, and not her skills in any case. Therefore, it’s not clear for now if Smith will be able to bring worthy changes by the time next presidential election take place in the next two years.
Future looks bright for BlackBerry
Even though Smith is busy replacing old BlackBerry’s with modern ones, analysts are confident on the survival of BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) (TSE:BB) as a company. Cormark analyst Richard Tse believe that the Canadian firm has a bright future. In a recent research note, Tse has reiterated his ‘Buy’ rating on BlackBerry with a price target of $17 along with a “Speculative” risk rating. The recent quarter was a mixed one for BlackBerry, believe Tse, who was not expecting overwhelming numbers.
The analyst notes a few positives for BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) (TSE:BB) such as rising popularity of BES12 and upgrade cycle helping average selling price of hardware.
