About Social Media Today
By Gail Thomas-Flynn, Microsoft US State & Local Government Vice President
With recent discussions around the federal budget leaving more questions than answers, state and local government leaders are under a continued mandate to cut spending and reduce existing costs, and the promise of cloud computing is becoming even more relevant. Still, many of the public sector CIOs rightfully have questions about whether the cloud is right for their city, state, or agency, and one of the questions I am often asked is who’s already in the cloud? I’m glad you asked.
Although cloud computing has become hot topic in state and local governments in just the past couple of years, Microsoft has been running some of the largest, most reliable online services in the world for over 16 years. To put it another way, our cloud infrastructure supports more than 200 cloud services, 1 billion customers, and 20 million businesses in over 76 markets worldwide, including over half of the Fortune 500.
And when it comes to your peers, more 500 state and local government organizations in 49 out of 50 U.S. states are in the Microsoft cloud—from small municipalities to the largest statewide agency systems. The list that follows is a sampling of some customers who are sharing their cloud stories so that others can learn and share in their success:
· City of Winston-Salem, North Carolina
· City of Chesapeake, Virginia
· City of Andover, Minnesota
· Village of Vernon Hills, Illinois
· Florida House of Representatives
· Michigan State Senate
· State of Colorado, Department of Labor and Employment
· State of Idaho, Department of Labor
· South Carolina Department of Social Services
· King County, Washington
· Ector County, Texas
· Klamath County, Oregon
· Maryland National Capital Parks and Planning Commission
· Washington Sound Transit
· Reedy Creek Improvement District (Florida)
· Democracy Live (multiple local election jurisdictions are leveraging this technology to assist with overseas military ballots)
Perhaps you are beginning to notice a trend – some of the biggest, most sophisticated government organizations are moving toward the Microsoft cloud – notably in the last few months the State of California, the State of Minnesota, and an immense Federal enterprise in the US Department of Agriculture – they all chose to move to the cloud on Microsoft technology. And today we announced that we are adding leaders in both government and education to our cloud roster including Portland Public Schools (Oregon); Vanderbilt University; University at Albany — SUNY; Fashion Institute of Technology — SUNY; the City of Virginia Beach, Virginia; the City of Alexandria, Virginia; and the Poarch Band of Creek Indians tribal government in southern Alabama.
The bottom line is that we understand the technology needs of complex enterprises – especially those that are responsible for managing and securing extremely sensitive public data. State and local governments need enterprise-grade collaborative capabilities that provide the highest levels of security, compliance requirements, productivity functionality, enterprise support and flexibility. Through the power of the Microsoft cloud, public sector customers are realizing a multitude of benefits including better access to information and improved data sharing capabilities, all while reducing computing costs and building on existing investments.
