Obama Signs $30B Small Business Lending Bill

A look at the week of September 28, 2010, in public advocacy for the IT channel

This week, the Small Business Lending Bill became law with President Obama’s signature on Monday.  The Senate is now moving forward on cybersecurity, drafting a compromise bill of the two competing proposals.  Also, Microsoft has been pushing the government to reconsider a decades-old law that may be holding back cloud computing.  Despite the end of the economic recession, tech hiring is slow to rebound.

Obama Signs $30B Small Business Lending Bill - Scoring a prized political victory five weeks before the Nov. 2 elections, President Barack Obama signed a bill to help small businesses expand and hire by cutting their taxes and creating a $30 billion loan fund, The Associated Press reports.  "This bill will do two big things," Obama said before signing the bill. "It's going to cut taxes and it's going to make more loans available for small businesses. It's a great victory for America's entrepreneurs."

Cybersecurity Draft Shows Signs of Compromise - After months of work, two Senate panels have drafted a compromise that could become the framework for the nation’s first comprehensive law addressing cybersecurity.  The draft would create a Senate-confirmed White House coordinator who would advise the president on cybersecurity, according to CQ Politics. The Homeland Security Department would lead the federal effort to secure computer networks.  But obstacles remain that will be difficult to overcome before the 111th Congress adjourns.

Microsoft Seeks Privacy Law to Aid Cloud Computing - Microsoft is urging U.S. lawmakers to overhaul laws for electronic privacy to help new services such as cloud computing, a technology that may double sales in five years, says Bloomberg.  As more data is stored on remote servers and away from personal computers, a 1986 digital law needs to be updated to give consumers confidence their information is protected, Brad Smith, Microsoft’s general counsel, said yesterday at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in Washington.

CIO Tech Hiring Expectations Are Flat - The tight cost fist is still clenched when it comes to technology hiring, eWeek reports. Despite 84 percent of CIOs being at least somewhat confident of growth in the fourth quarter of 2010, only 9 percent expect to increase hiring, according to Robert Half Technology's quarterly index report on hiring published Sept. 8.  Six percent expect to decrease staff, which means the net increase will amount to 3 percent.