Government takes on new data services role

New media has given rise to a new government service -- making data accessible, a top Microsoft Corp. official said during a federal technology conference on Wednesday. "The fundamental role of government is to provide services and they have to be provided in a universal way," said Craig Mundie, chief research and strategy officer at Microsoft, during the Gov 2.0 Summit in Washington. The event was hosted by O'Reilly Media and TechWeb. Nextgov was a media sponsor. "There is essentially a new government service and that is the data service . . .government is faced with the problem of how do I make that [data] more uniformly available," said Mundie, who spoke before a ballroom filled with senior government officials, company executives and nonprofit leaders.