As agencies sometimes get bulk or government-specific discounts, it can also be more affordable to buy software licenses on behalf of their private contractors. “It’s a very clear way for agencies to manage costs,” said the former official.
Each government agency has its own unique structure, including many subagles or units, each with their own software needs. It can help explain other alleged licensing issues that Doge has called out this week, including that GSA has ‘3 different ticket systems that are parallel’ and has several tools to manage unspecified training.
In a separate post this week, Doge proclaimed the Department of Labor for allegedly licensing five cyber security programs, each for more than 20,000 users, despite having only about 15,000 employees. The Post also quoted that the Department of 380 Microsoft 365 holds productivity software with zero users, and only 30 out of the 128 Microsoft teams -Conference rooms he licensed, and used only 22 out of 129 Photoshop licenses. The Post also referred to unused licenses for ‘VScode’, the short name for a completely free Microsoft instrument to write code; The company does sell a paid alternative known as Visual Studio.
Microsoft declined to comment. Adobe, who develops Photoshop, did not respond to a request to comment.
Although Doge may not have offered a complete image of wasteful expenses, it is true that the federal government sometimes struggled to manage the use of software licenses effectively. Many watchdog groups in government have in the past found cases of wasteful spending on software.
Members of Congress have been trying for years to get agencies to address the issue, the former federal official says. The Agencies Law on the Software Association Act, or the Samosa Act, which approved the home with two -party support last year, but stopped in the Senate, would have required agencies to do what no matter now: assesses existing software contracts, consolidating licenses. According to the former official, the legislation aims to give agencies more bargaining power over the handful of large technical firms that dominate the government’s software.
‘As elon [Musk] Wanted to do this in the right way, they would work with the congress to accept the Samosa Act, ”says the official. ‘People who will be there, even when Doge leaves can enter into smarter, cheaper contracts. They need to set up a repeatable process through which agencies will constantly re -evaluate their software needs and get better performance for lower costs. “
Trieteer, of the Coalition for Fair Software Licensing, has credited Doge for investigating licensing issues. “I know there’s a lot of concern about what dogs are doing, but it’s an area that is hope and possibility,” she says.
Other federal contracting experts and congressional offices told Wired that Doge should not lose sight of larger targets while looking for savings. There were 11 federal contracting information technology programs each accounting for more than $ 1 billion in spending during the government’s last financial year, which ran from October 2023 to September 2024, according to an analysis of Wired by Deltek, whose Govin IQ instrument detects the acquisition. Contracts are often divided into smaller pieces, and under the task orders, more than $ 1 billion has been spent on six individual task orders related to them over the past few years. They are led by a Dell agreement with the Department of Veterans issues and a Booz Allen Hamilton agreement with the Pentagon.