Huddle and FCO Services to take UK civil servants into the cloud

July 21, 2011 Off By David
Grazed from Computer Weekly.  Author: Warwick Ashford.

UK civil servants are to be among the first in the world to use cloud computing to work on classified documents due to a partnership between UK start-up Huddle and government security chiefs.

The partnership with FCO Services, which manages the UK government’s secure private network, will enable civil servants to share policy documents and make changes online instead of requiring face-to-face meetings or protracted e-mail exchanges, according to the Financial Times.

The move will put the UK ahead of the US in its use of the technology and will help Huddle to sell its software service to other governments, the paper said.

FCO Services chose Huddle over much larger IT companies, partly because its servers are located only in the UK, and partly because it is already used by 70% of central government departments eager to tap into the benefits of rapid deployment, lower cost and more secure central storage.