We are finalizing up Issue 2 of our new e-magazine TRANSFORM, which will provide an exciting overview about the role Clouds will play in building new Government e-services, with a particular focus on Canadian Healthcare.

For TRANSFORM 3 we will be continuing this Canadian micro-scope, turning our attention to the recent RFP published by Ontario Province for an e-tendering solution.

Of course one of the immediate questions this prompts is to ask what SaaS options there are for e-procurement? This then leads in to the ‘readiness’ factor for government organizations – If Cloud is entirely new they won’t be ready for buying services this way.

This leads us on to the headline theme for this edition, this broader impact of Cloud upon procurement and importantly, innovation.

In the USA they began their Cloud procurement vehicle through this GSA program for an IaaS marketplace, and in the UK their G-Cloud initiative saw the launch of the Cloudstore.

These marketplaces are transforming how IT is bought and delivered, lowering costs and improving efficiencies but even more importantly encouraging more local innovation.

As highlighted in this article, the G-Cloud initiative in the UK, which is a government-operated Cloud broker, has enabled more small businesses to access and participate in government procurement.

This is a great benefit that we think many other countries would want to achieve for their SMEs too, so the headline agenda for this issue is the ‘recipe’ ideas for how this might be accomplished.