Dear Commons Community,
I am sure that many of you get a number of invitations in your email everyday to participate in some type of webinar. I usually take a quick look and then delete the item before I have finished the come on. Yesterday I received an email for such a webinar and ended up reading the entire item (see the text below). The topic of the webinar will be a discussion of how the city of Orlando is cutting the costs of its IT budget by moving a number of its applications including its email services to the “cloud” using Google Apps. I have made three other posts on this blog on the topic of cloud computing in terms of a future approach to providing computer services (see URLs below). I am amazed that such a large and fairly tech-savvy city/area of the country such as Orlando has already made such a move. Putting aside the election debacle and the chads in 2000, I say Orlando is tech savvy mainly because it is a new and one of the fastest-growing metropolitan areas in the USA; the state of Florida is well respected for its technology initiatives in K-20 education; and the University of Central Florida where Orlando is located, is among the nation’s leaders in providing online learning programs in higher education. If cloud computing has been such a benefit particularly because of its cost cutting, should we now be considering it as a viable option for IT services in our colleges, schools, and other organizations?
Tony
https://apicciano.commons.gc.cuny.edu/2010/02/05/more-cloud-computing/
https://apicciano.commons.gc.cuny.edu/2009/11/20/cloud-computing-google-chrome-moving-forward/
City of Orlando Cuts Costs by Over 66% by Moving Email and Apps into the Cloud
Date: Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Time: 2:00 PM (EDT) | 11:00 AM (PDT)
When Conrad Cross, CIO for Orlando, got his budget cut and lost two experienced IT administrators, he knew he had to find another solution to replace the city’s legacy email and communications infrastructure. After considering the usual options, Cross found a compelling value proposition in a cloud-based solution offered by Google Apps.
With tough constituents to please – including the Mayor’s office and public safety departments – Cross and his team converted 3,000 users to the new system over the year-end holidays. The results were compelling: no more requests for mailbox increases, no need to upgrade aging hardware, and a mayor who corners the CIO for the latest updates on Google.
Join Government Technology and the Center for Digital Government for a live, interactive webinar to discuss Orlando’s move into the cloud. You will learn:
- Recent trends in government adoption of cloud computing
- How to calculate the true ROI of cloud vs. conventional solutions
- Rapid deployment best practices
- Pros and cons of Google Apps for cities and county governments
Moderator:
John Miri
Senior Fellow, Center for Digital Government
Former Director of E-Government, State of Texas
Speakers:
Conrad Cross
Chief Information Officer
City of Orlando, Florida
Serena Satyasai
Product Marketing Manager
Google
