In the early 1990s the company squandered enormous resources and billions of dollars on a series of failed consumer products like the Newton PDA. Its efforts to do everything itself, building capabilities as varied as cutting-edge hardware development and volume manufacturing, led to huge losses and massive layoffs.
Unless IT has a vision for the processes it wants to implement using this new generation of applications, much time will be wasted as too much data is collected, resources are squandered on unnecessary and misguided customization, and use falls off after implementation because the application provides little value.
Neither the long-term strategic interests of the United States nor the short-term interests of its taxpayers will be served if American resources continue to be squandered in ways that retard, rather than advance, this process.