The cloud market is governed by major IT players, largely based in the United States, including, of course, Google, Amazon, Microsoft Azure, IBM, and Oracle. Look around the world, and you can also load Alibaba, the German SAP child and Chinese e-commerce, noting that this is an area reserved for industry giants.
In this context, UKCloud would possibly have held a trend when last week it became the only on-premises cloud company recognized to date, thanks to a Memorandum of Understanding, as the UK government’s strategic provider in this area. And according to CEO and co-founder Simon Hansford, it is vital that a British company discovers itself in the enchanted inner circle of cloud corporations that supply the public sector.
Founded in 2008, UKCloud explicitly set out to serve the UK public sector. “We had to see that the British government spent 17.5 billion pounds on IT projects,” he recalls. “We believe cloud computing could disrupt that.” In particular, Hansford believed that the cloud allowed the government to escape restrictions related to being locked up in multi-year service contracts.
Since then, UKCloud has performed well in its selected market. Thanks to the G-Cloud procurement system component of the public sector, it was able to win contracts directly and indirectly. “About the components of our activities are direct to the components,” says Hansford. “The remaining 50% comes from running with components.” Last year, turnover amounted to 37 million pounds and the company received a 25 million pound investment from Digital Alpha.
Hansford says the company has obtained orders from all departments. So that raises a question. Why is the Mou Memorandum (MOU) so important?
Procurement strategy
The answer lies in a replenishment in purchasing policy. “Last year, the government announced its One Government Cloud strategy,” Hansford says. Essentially, this only commits the public sector to accentuating its use of cloud services, but it also sets policy rules or, as Hansford says, a handbook for government procurement. In this environment, a position on the supplier table is obviously important.
But is this a big challenge for the rest of us? Yes, you can say that it’s a smart thing for a relatively young company run by a founder to have established a public sector bridgehead in a cloud market governed by a few giant suppliers. But is it vital to know who supplies the software as a service infrastructure?
Election and sovereignty
Hansford says yes. “It’s a matter of choice,” he says. “We believe that the government should be very careful not to be locked up in secure technologies or suppliers. As a general rule, you don’t need to use a single provider.”
Of course, there are several suppliers, large and small, so selection is available, but Hansford cites some other explanation as to why making sure a local provider has a role to play. “There are many considerations about the sovereignty of knowledge,” he says. “For example, in spaces such as criminal policy, passports and law enforcement, where their knowledge is stored matters.”
Global players have answered questions about knowledge sovereignty in terms of server maintenance locally, but Hansford says this necessarily addresses the option that, for example, an American company will be forced through the Washington government to open its servers for review. if the data is kept abroad
Data as currency
And as Hansford sees, knowledge will increasingly be felt as an asset that can be monetized through government. He cites the example of knowledge of fitness that can be sold, rather than given to pharmaceutical companies. “I think knowledge will become a coin. Nations will exchange knowledge and create new industries,” he says.
Hansford recognizes that to exchange knowledge, governments will want to create legal frameworks that can address any public concerns. “The concept that knowledge is a currency is new and requires discussion. But it will happen,” he says.
Some of this will almost involve addressing the sovereignty factor of knowledge; hence, as Hansford sees, the importance of British companies with on-premises infrastructure playing a role in government cloud computing.
I am a journalist in the UK and with more than a decade of pleasure writing about new companies, generation corporations and fast-growing corporations. My career in journalism
I am a journalist in the UK and with more than a decade of pleasure writing about new companies, generation corporations and fast-growing corporations. My career in journalism began as editor of BBC World’s pan-European text messaging services. From there, I edited the e.Business and PLC Director magazines before being independent. I am the one with 3 books, adding Jamie Oliver Way’s Unified Business Guide, which has been translated into five languages. Follow me on Twitter s trevorclawson