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Cloud can deliver more efficient e-government in APAC

Cloud can deliver more efficient e-government in APAC

Analysis by IDC Government Insights

Most public sector agencies need to urgently coordinate and integrate the various e-government functions, according to a newly released report by IDC Government Insights.

The research firm says most public sector agencies are widely dispersed operational silos and are challenged with varying policy and operational restrictions. As a result, there are different needs and scales on their IT capacity.

"Looking Ahead: Articulating Cloud Competencies for the Asia Pacific Public Sector," says the business case for the traditional data centre is no longer sustainable in the long run. Therefore, the public sector agencies should actively explore the possibility of the adoption of cloud computing technologies.

Concerns over use

Gerald Wang, senior market analyst at IDC Government Insights Asia Pacific, says in general, the regional public sector is still apprehensive about the adoption of cloud computing.

The doubts are especially high in agencies that handle sensitive information and most of the initiatives today are still at an experimental stage. Full scale deployment is still not common because the public sector is still trying to determine the return on investment (ROI) and the risks involved in the adoption of cloud computing technologies.

Wang suggests that governments should actively bring change in their policies and address the people and process aspects of cloud implementations. The focus should be on revolutionising traditional workflows and facilitating interoperable standards to bring about greater inter-agency coordination.

Accountability demands

There has been an increase in public scrutiny and accountability demands on the IT budgets of government organisations after the global recession. But at the same time, these enterprises are expected to deliver high quality service and productivity.

IDC notes that due to these demands, the public agencies are driven to search for technological alternatives, such as cloud computing solutions. Looking ahead,

data protection and security solutions such as "rights-management-as-a-service", and integrated business intelligence and analytics applications are set to become key technological innovations that lead the adoption of cloud computing for the public sector.

"The eventual adoption of cloud technologies, whether public, private or a hybrid of both models, lies fundamentally on the operational requirements it seeks to address," adds Wang.

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