Posts by AndrewCarr

UK.gov cloud is 'biggest breakthrough' - UK.gov cloud CIO

CloudStore is the first pragmatic step towards the Government consuming cloud services and it’s encouraging to see that it is starting to make money. However, as Andy Nelson, the Government's chief information officer (CIO) acknowledges, “there’s a long way to go yet.”

The jury remains out on the long-term success of CloudStore and also of G-Cloud. Widespread adoption is not going to happen overnight. It will require a huge shift in cultural patterns and requirements to facilitate the move from an ownership to a rental model. As we have seen with other technologies and business models over the years, the Government will need to adjust its approach to match the new framework and ways of selecting and purchasing cloud services.

Furthermore, the roll-out of G-Cloud and CloudStore still does not address the underlying issue of ‘Big Data’. This new plethora of services is bringing with it even more digital data that needs to be intelligently converted into meaningful information, so that decisions can be made quickly and effectively. Only then will the public sector be able to start reaping the true benefits of the cloud services available.

Andrew Carr, sales and marketing director, Bull UK & Ireland

Next UK.gov CloudStore lumbers online

This is the first pragmatic step towards the Government consuming cloud services and it’s encouraging to see the initiative starting to take shape. However, adoption is not going to happen overnight. It will require a huge shift in cultural patterns and requirements to facilitate the move from an ownership to a rental model. As we have seen with other technologies and business models over the years, the Government will need to adjust its approach to match the new framework and ways of selecting and purchasing cloud services.

Furthermore, this still does not address the underlying issue of ‘big data’. This new plethora of services available will bring with them even more digital data that needs to be intelligently converted into meaningful information, so that decisions can be made quickly and effectively. Only then will the public sector be able to start reaping the true benefits of the cloud services available.

Andrew Carr, sales and marketing director, Bull UK & Ireland

Gov IT supermarket G-Cloud will cost £4.93m, says Maude

G-Cloud to cost £4.9m but save £340m

The government’s comments about the savings that can be achieved through the use of G-Cloud and the likely costs of the project need to be taken with a large pinch of salt. It is unclear how they have calculated these figures. Whatever method they have used, it is unlikely that they have factored into their equations the many issues and challenges, which need to be overcome before the G-Cloud can become successful.

One problem it faces is how to manage change. How can government, and the wider public sector, whose procurement process often ends up stalled by bureaucracy and red tape, add, amend or retire services from the catalogue quickly and efficiently? In other words, how can it maintain ‘flexibility for change’? The restraints on public sector pay announced in the recent budget look set to make matters worse, as this elusive flexibility will become even harder to achieve. . This is a significant programme of change that requires strong organisational management skills to ensure benefits, primarily cost and flexibility, are realised.

There will also be problems around cultural readiness, again likely to be made worse by the changes announced in the recent budget. Government may have created a catalogue in the shape of CloudStore that public sector businesses can buy from, but are government agencies prepared for this? After all, these agencies are typically less culturally advanced than businesses in the private sector – and it is debatable whether government users are ready for the kind of transformation that moving to the cloud may bring to interaction with IT systems and services. Again, the way the G-Cloud is currently configured, it is a project that is more likely to lead to escalating cost rather than one to drive efficiencies and financial savings.

by Andrew Carr, sales and marketing director, Bull UK & Ireland