Cloud computing gains in federal government

ITworld, Kenneth Corbin, CIO, 5/3/2012

The federal government may not be renowned for its operational speed or agility, and certainly IT is no exception, but federal agency CIOs and their employees have gradually been warming to the new model of cloud computing, according to a panel of industry executives speaking at a conference here on Wednesday.

"We've seen movement both in private cloud and public cloud," says Susie Adams, chief technology officer for Microsoft's federal business.

Adams and others noted that government clients are increasingly looking to commercial cloud services both for infrastructure functions like computing power and storage, and applications such as email and collaboration or CRM-like tools to deliver better citizen services.