Oakland County and state announce cloud collaboration to save money, improve services

A partnership between the State of Michigan and Oakland County will save taxpayers money and improve government services by expanding the cloud for government-based software in Michigan. Under the name G2G Marketplace, Michigan's MiCloud program and the county's G2G Cloud Solutions have issued a joint request for qualification (RFQ) from national IT companies in order to implement this new initiative. "This is exactly what Gov. Snyder had in mind when he said he wants governments working together," Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson said. "Collaborating with the state will broaden our ability to offer low-cost technology solutions to other governments." G2G Marketplace will be a multimedia-rich information portal where any government agency can research and provision eCommerce, website hosting, and other government solutions. It will provide government agencies access to vendors who provide technology solutions for government. In addition, GTG Marketplace will be open to all governments to submit and share their own products and services. Users will access the G2G Marketplace using a desktop, laptop, smartphone, tablet, or other mobile devices. "I just finished a panel discussion at the Mackinac Policy Conference about the importance of state and local government coming together to find shared ways of doing business," said John Nixon, director of Michigan's Department of Technology, Management, and Budget. "This partnership to procure cloud solutions is a perfect example of how different levels of government can come together to find more efficient ways of doing business, resulting in reduced costs for Michigan taxpayers." The RFQ closing date is June 27 at 2 p.m. Any companies seeking additional information about the RFQ may email Richard Brower in the county's Compliance Division at browerr@oakgov.com. Put in the subject line "G2G Marketplace RFQ Questions." Some of the benefits of G2G Marketplace are: * Reduces time and resources necessary to investigate vendor products and services and to draft complex contracts and agreements with vendors. * Decreases the need for scarce IT resources required to manage servers, networks, and security, among others. * Enables governments to use and pay for only the computing resources they need. * Combines economies of scale from shared computing resources and software and licensing to reduce costs. * Offers vendors a unique and productive way to reach out to government customers. * Improves time and cost for contract negotiations with government agencies. * Expands vendors' customer base by providing solutions to governments who may not otherwise have a budget to fund an enterprise solution. G2G Cloud Solutions was developed by Oakland County under the leadership of County Executive L. Brooks Patterson to improve government services by sharing technology with other government agencies at little or no cost. G2G Cloud Solutions provides technology solutions to government agencies regardless of their size, budget, geographic limitations or restrictions. It operates on the premise that all governments should have equal access to the most advanced technology in order to best serve all citizens' needs. It is among the first government-supported cloud services in the nation that makes leading-edge technical solutions available to other governments at little or no cost. Since 2010, the State of Michigan has successfully offered a self-provisioned cloud-computing environment, collectively termed MiCloud, to internal State of Michigan agency customers. While innovative at its inception, customer demand and technological advancements continue to increase, driving the next generation of the state's virtual infrastructure. MiCloud 2.0 will leverage both internal and public cloud providers to create a hybrid environment that dynamically aligns technology resources to current needs, facilitating advantages such as burst capacity, scalability, test/dev to production environments, and external partner collaboration. Published: Fri, Jun 7, 2013

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