White House officials are studying the merger of Hewlett-Packard
and Compaq to enhance their chances of success with the formation
of the US Department of Homeland Security.
But while the HP/Compaq merger can offer the US government
important tips about how to manage IT integration on a massive
scale, officials warned that the homeland security reorganisation
and integration would take years to complete.
Speaking last week at Infosecurity 2002 in New York, Robert
Shepherd of the Office of Homeland Security said White House
officials have met with HP executives as well as executives from
other companies. But HP and Compaq "had six to nine months to
investigate each other to see what they were getting their hands
on", said Shepherd, who is director of information integration.
"Then they had a full year with a transition team of 1,000 of the
best people working full time to stand it up," he noted.
In contrast, the homeland security bill was passed at the end of
November, and the headquarters will be operational by the end of
February, giving the government 90 days to have everything in
place. "This is going to be an evolutionary process. It's going to
be continuous," said Shepherd, adding that the enterprise
architecture being studied as the basis of the nationwide homeland
security effort "is never complete".
As a result, the White House is taking a phased approach consisting
of several near-term projects, such as consolidating terrorism
watch lists, developing an integrated e-mail and directory system,
installing a secure videoconferencing infrastructure and expanding
secure network connectivity.
There are now more than 22 human resources systems within the 22
federal agencies that will become part of the new department, said
Shepherd. Dozens of databases from law enforcement and intelligence
agencies, the US Customs Service and the biomedical and health
community "are not mutually accessible", he added.
HP chief security strategist Ira Winkler said the government was
more likely to be focusing on how to reduce redundancies and
streamline staffing, rather than from a security perspective.
"In the case of HP and Compaq, we had duplication of effort, which
was the big thing that Wall Street was watching," said
Winkler.
But the more formidable challenge remains the potential clashes
that could occur between the "22 distinct cultures" that must come
together to form the headquarters, said Shepherd. "We need to make
all of these people in the shortest possible time frame feel that
they are integral parts of the new department," he said.
Given these and other challenges, a nationwide homeland security
information-sharing capability that encompasses federal, state and
local governments plus the private sector could take as "as long as
never", said Steven Aftergood, an analyst at the Federation of
American Scientists in Washington.
"The technological, procedural and security obstacles can all be
overcome in a reasonable period of time," he said. "But as long as
individual agencies feel they are in competition with one another
for budget dollars, official favour or public esteem, there will be
a temptation to hoard information or to disclose
selectively."
The challenges could require several rounds of new legislation from
Congress to solidify the agency's role, said John Woodward, a
former CIA officer who is now a senior policy analyst at Rand.
For example, the new department will absorb 17 unions, 15 pay
systems that are different from the standard civil service system,
and at least 10 distinct hiring systems, Woodward said. "The
implementation of the new department will be an extremely complex
task and will, ultimately, take years to achieve," he warned.
And while studying the HP/Compaq merger is a good idea, no amount
of preparation guarantees success, said Mark Lobel, a senior
analyst at PricewaterhouseCoopers.
"We will have a functional structure and, hopefully, better
integration and information-sharing by 1 March," said Lobel. "But I
know from watching very large corporate mergers that some of them
take years to realise the full benefits."