Analysis: Big Data and the Cloud will Transform City Government
September 21, 2012
Grazed from DailyFinance. Author: Editorial Staff.
Around the world, city leaders face the challenge of delivering economic growth while meeting sustainability targets and rising expectations about the quality of municipal services, often in the face of drastic budget reductions. This is forcing many city leaders to improve efficiency and drive further innovation in the creation and delivery of services. According to a recent report from Pike Research, a part of Navigant’s Energy Practice, new platforms for communication, data sharing, and application development – particularly cloud computing and data analytics – will play a key role in this transformation.
Cumulative investment in smart government technology between 2011 and 2017 will be almost $4.8 billion, the report finds. Annual investment in smart government technologies in North America alone will surpass $1 billion in 2017, and annual investment in cloud services for smart cities will reach nearly $1.4 billion worldwide by 2017…
"Cloud-based computing, in particular, offers new options for cities that reduces capital expenditure, provides access to new skills, and reduces time-to-deployment of new solutions," says research director Eric Woods. "Cloud-based systems also enable cities to take advantage of the huge amounts of operational data they collect to improve efficiency and develop new services."…
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