UK government 'falling behind' in cloud adoption

UK government 'falling behind' in cloud adoption

The UK government is being particularly slow in taking up cloud computing services, according to one industry expert.

Speaking at the Cloudforce event in London, Marc Benioff, Salesforce chief executive, said that the UK government is stubbornly sticking to private cloud services, instead of embracing the public cloud like the US government.

Mr Benioff told Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude that the government in Britain needs to “get aggressive” about the situation. He elaborated: “The UK is way behind in this – and way too much into virtualisation and the G-Cloud, which is a big virtual machine that has not been executed well. Too much cost has gone into running too many data centres.”

Indeed, cost is one of the main areas of benefit regarding cloud adoption. The UK government has too many data centres and this is “not OK … it's costing them a fortune," said Mr Benioff. With public spending taking such a hit in the wake of the recession, moving towards cloud systems could help the coalition to redirect some of its IT expenditure towards paying back the budget deficit.

The comments come as Salesforce is looking into opening a UK data centre – most likely based in London – within the next couple of years. However, Mr Benioff noted that unlike some IT vendors, the firm won't tie its cloud offerings into particular hardware. This, he stated, is “not efficient, not democratic, not environmental and not economic”.

While the government appears to be cautious in its own adoption of the cloud, businesses in the UK are quickly learning about the cost and operability benefits. But those that are considering making the switch would do well to consider their own networks first.

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