Steven VanRoekel, a former Microsoft executive, will become the next chief information officer for the federal government — a bigger, more policy-oriented technology job than any he held at the software giant.

Mr. VanRoekel, 41, who joined the Obama administration from Microsoft in 2009 as managing director of the Federal Communications Commission, will succeed Vivek Kundra, the White House plans to announce on Thursday.

The federal government spends about $80 billion a year on information technology, more than any corporation. But the government, analysts agree, has not achieved the kind of productivity gains from its technology investment that is evident in the private sector.

The long-term trend of productivity growth in the private sector, said Jeffrey D. Zients, a deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget, has been about 1.5 percent a year. Yet productivity growth in the federal government, he noted, has been less than a third that level.