Apps vs large systems

There is a problem that I think is slowly being made amenable to improvement.

Most government agencies have had a disastrous history of adopting information technology. Computers.

From the earliest efforts to use computers in the IRS and the military, the results have been high cost overruns, static systems that are too rigid to be broadly useful and complete failed projects. Governments face this inherent problem. They are governed themselves by compromises within existing power forces. Power is never static or stable. Therefore the demands for computer systems are constantly in flux and difficult to impliment.

The same is true, to a slightly lesser extent, in all bureaucracies.

The term app has recently migrated from meaning a specific but distinct function of a large computer system to referring to specific functions on a mobile computer.

It is this distinct creation of mobile apps with their own language that run on a separate operating system and obtain data from an Internet database that seems to me will offer greater access to computerization from government agencies and other bureaucracies.

Because writing specific variations on a large computer system is very costly and maintaining those variations is even more costly it strikes me that having these apps as standalone separate functions will make larger computer systems more functional.

I have only dealt with this issue with a few of my clients and while looking at a seventh revision for Marketing Without Advertising.

Please feel free to enlighten me.