The advent of the cloud and cloud services through the Internet has many local government managers reconsidering their approach to IT management.  When computer networks first entered the office place, they required the creation of a new department -- the IT department -- to provide support for the organization’s hardware and software needs. 

Over time service departments have taken advantage of specialized software and apps to support their core missions. Given the wide variety of software solutions now being used by different departments throughout local government, attempting to hire IT staff to support all of those programs would be cost prohibitive.  And as software solutions have grown more sophisticated and intuitive over time, the need for on premise solutions has lessened.  

Using the cloud and cloud services offers other advantages over on premise solutions.  In addition to requiring fewer IT staff for software support functions, hardware expenses are also lowered because file storage is moved to the cloud.  A free webinar being offered by GovLoop and Microsoft will explore the questions that local government managers need to ask before making a decision to moving to the cloud will be held Tuesday, January 27th from 2-3PM ET/11AM PT.  Click here to register.