1. Connected Government in a Connected World
The rising tide of technology is carrying the world commerce and governments—national,
regional, and local—into new and uncharted territories. What this means in today’s era of cloud
computing, open data, and the consumerization of IT is that the dynamics between governments
and users of public services are transforming. Critical issues such as service delivery, efficiency,
transparency, and quality of service are under greater stress than ever before in light of higher
user expectations. As technology is evolving, the associated costs and deployment risks are
declining while capabilities continue to advance, making it easier and less expensive for
governments at all economic levels to leverage technology and lay out new modern services.
However, all governments are grappling with the challenges of this ever more connected world.
With the increasing amount of data governments manage come complex responsibilities
regarding how that information is accessed, stored, and used—including sovereignty, security,
and privacy. As they move to embrace the advantages afforded by new technology, governments
must first address how they can leverage technology to meet the above challenges—in a way
that adheres to standards of compliance and security.
According to Gartner1, “technology trends and the pressure for financial sustainability will lead
government organizations toward greater levels of choice in how technology is sourced across
their entire value chain. Gartner offers an analysis, key findings, and recommendations for
government CIOs and key IT leaders."
At Microsoft, we see these issues as dimensions of a single theme: Connection. Connecting
government to citizens, connecting information to government workers, and connecting
government agencies together—all in the interest of achieving higher levels of service, efficiency,
and accountability for this and the next generation of citizens. Governments that transform
connections to information and people can create a real impact for better government.
1 DiMaio, Andrea, “The Key to Smart Government Is Choice,” Gartner Industry Research, June 20, 2011
(ID:G00213803).
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2. Connected Citizens for Improved Service Delivery and Engagement
The explosion of smarter devices and pervasive Internet services means many consumers have
new levels of access to information and methods to connect with government services and fellow
citizens. These always-on, technology natives include a younger generation of tomorrow’s active
citizens who have high expectations of their government agencies—such as on-demand services
with native integration to social media and smart devices. The appetite for government
information is now such that social tools and open data applications, such as those enabled by
the cloud, are often the only viable solution to provide these richer, and more personalized
experiences. The result is better served and more engaged citizens.
Cloud Solution Promotes a Cleaner London in Build Up to Olympic Games
Today the citizens of London, England, can report and comment on environmental issues through a
cloud-enabled Microsoft® Solution built around Windows Azure®. This reduces the cost and
massively expands the availability of a critical application. The combination of the transactional
and social aspects of a service has led this solution to be adopted by the city in their preparation for
the 2012 Olympic Games under the brand “Love Clean London.”
Connected Workers Enabled by a Modernized Workplace
Years ago, the advent of personal computing created a disruptive effect on technology in the
enterprise. Today, consumerization of IT is having the same effect on government agencies.
Gartner coined the phrase “Employee-Centric Government”2 to describe the challenge of
integrating information around government employees, just as governments strive to do for their
citizens. This involves not just connecting applications but also connecting knowledge—from
data sharing to social connections—as agencies take advantage of technologies that can help
foster a culture change toward collective knowledge and expertise through empowerment.
German State Government Increases Productivity 66 Percent with Unified Interface
The state of Hesse in Germany employs 90,000 workers and supports an infrastructure of 1,800
servers and 60,000 computers. Employees were using more than 400 applications with different
user interfaces and no standard mechanism for exchanging common data between standard
applications and customized software. Data had to be entered multiple times. The government
solved this problem by using a partner solution that leverages Microsoft Biztalk Server and
Microsoft Office to connect these different applications—improving case processing productivity by
2
DiMaio, Andrea, “Why Government 2.0 Is Not Government 1.1” March 8, 2011.
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3. 66 per cent, as documented in a study by the German Fraunhofer Institut für Arbeitswirtschaft und
Organisation (IAO).
Connected Information for Improved Insight and Accountability
While providing technology to better support citizens and workers is a significant step forward
there still remains the challenge of how to connect information across government agencies.
Creating a real impact in this effort is critical, recognizing that successful government operations
depend on having the right information, in the right format, across organizational and
technological boundaries in order to improve efficiency, promote transparency, and enable
business insight. This is especially true as some seek to engage with non-government or
voluntary sector organizations to reduce costs and improve agility. Such models have to rely on
robust, scalable technology such as the cloud to operate effectively, because without them the
best intentions can be undermined by simple breakdowns in collaboration and communication.
European Environment Agency’s Pioneering Online Tools Bring Revolutionary Data to
Citizens
An agency of the European Union, the European Environment Agency (EEA) provides policy makers
and the general public with independent and reliable information on the environment. The agency
is working to raise environmental awareness across Europe by delivering easy-to-understand
information about environmental issues such as water and air quality. Working with Microsoft, the
EEA developed the Eye on Earth platform, based on the Windows Azure cloud services operating
system. Users can view water or air quality from the 32 member countries of the EEA using high-
definition Microsoft® Bing® maps. The EEA has also launched the Environmental Atlas of Europe,
which features first-hand, eyewitness stories about climate change.
Connected Cities for Smarter Living Environments
Cities of all sizes and complexities are the hub of local economic development, and many are
experiencing a surge of citizens moving from the country to towns. As such, there is a concurrent
need to make cities smarter: resources like water, space, energy and clean air are scarce and need
to be used with greater efficacy. Information and communication technology (ICT) provides a
catalyst to help cities transform to smart cities. Cities and metropolitan areas can leverage ICT to
manage urban congestion, maximize energy efficiency, enhance public security, allocate
resources based on real-time evidence, and educate the citizenry through remote learning. As a
result, city authorities can create more livable and economically viable communities for the
citizens and businesses they serve.
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4. City of Malmö Gains Full Benefits from IT Services*
The multicultural city of Malmö is the third most populated city in Sweden. It employs
approximately 19,500 people, including a 10-people strong IT team. Together, they serve
300,000 citizens who have made this city, with its modern architecture, parks, beach, growing
businesses, and flourishing university, their home. In 2010, the city recognized a need to make
the services it provided more compatible with each other and IT more aligned with the
organization’s business objectives. Together with Microsoft, the city conducted a comprehensive
analysis of their business objectives and existing IT to determine an IT strategy that could help
the city achieve desired outcome. Business objectives, such as continuing to be an attractive city
to do business in and improving levels of environmental sustainability, were linked to the existing
IT strategies to reveal what needed to be invested in and why.
*This case study is available only in Swedish.
Changes Sweep across Today’s Technology Landscape
Consumerization of IT
As mobile devices and social computing continue to improve citizens’ personal lives, people
naturally expect this technology to provide the same advantages at work. Many government
employees want to use consumer devices and social networking for work-related interactions.
According to a recent IDC study, between a third to more than half of devices (including laptops,
mobile phones, and smart phones) used in the workplace are used for both work and personal
purposes. IDC believes consumerization will be an unstoppable trend over the next five years; it
follows that government IT managers must make key decisions and adopt a coherent strategy in
order to best deal with the impact of this trend.
Nitobi Harnesses the Power of Open Government Data with VanGuide
Nitobi Inc. is a developer of mobile and rich Internet applications for the enterprise in Vancouver,
Canada. The developer wanted to create an application using open government data in a way that
makes data more compelling and personable for citizens. Nitobi used the Microsoft® Open
Government Data Initiative together with Vancouver’s open data and the Windows Azure platform
to enable citizens to access government data easily and quickly via the VanGuide mobile and web-
based application.
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5. Computing in the Cloud
With its ability to reduce IT costs, increase agility, reduce the need for physical IT resources, and
help organizations stay at the forefront of technology, cloud computing is a hot topic at all levels
of government. IDC recently predicted that “Cloud computing will continue to reshape the IT
landscape over the next five years as spending on public IT cloud services expands at a
compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 27.6 percent from $21.5 billion in 2010 to $72.9 billion
in 2015.”3 Cloud computing gives governments the ability to deploy service channels with as little
or as much power from private, public, or community clouds as they need. This flexibility and
choice mean not only tremendous cost savings and more efficient use of resources, but they also
provide governments and political officials with more flexibility in the ways that they access
information.
City Government Improves Service Offerings, Cuts Costs with Cloud Services Solution
The city of Miami, Florida, wanted to develop an online application to record, track, and report on
nonemergency incidents. However, the application’s sophisticated mapping technology would
require significant computing resources. Further constrained by long hardware-procurement cycles,
the city needed a cost-effective, scalable solution that would maximize its available resources.
Miami developed a 311 application on the Windows Azure platform, taking advantage of scalable
storage, processing power, and hosting provided by Microsoft. The city reduced IT costs, improved
citizen services, and delivered those services faster. It now relies on a [cloud-based] cost-effective
disaster-recovery model—an important benefit in this hurricane-prone region.
Cloud Power Delivers New Opportunities
Technology advances have opened new possibilities and raised expectations about governments’
role and how governments should serve communities. These possibilities include:
 Cloud computing as a viable ICT provisioning model and a way to reduce costs and deliver
new services.
 Social media to enhance and improve levels of participation and citizen satisfaction with
services.
 Open data and government data stores to allow much wider access to publishing and
distributing public information.
3Nathan Eddy, “IT Cloud Services Spending to Reach $72.9 Billion in 2015: IDC Report,” Midmarket News,
eWEEK, June 20, 2011 (http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Midmarket/IT-Cloud-Services-Spending-to-Reach-729-
Billion-in-2015-IDC-Report-547901/).
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6. By harnessing new technologies, governments can deliver better experiences to communities—
without escalating costs. As this transformation becomes more federated and processes cross
many boundaries—from on-premises technology platforms to web services and cloud
resources—a new set of possibilities emerge.
The cloud provides an exciting platform to develop new applications and new ways to deliver
services and information to communities. At Microsoft, we have already seen various levels of
government take advantage of the power of open data—placing information and services
directly into the hands of citizens. Examples include:
 Citizen Services—In the United Kingdom, www.lovelewisham.org has become a shining
example of an open citizen-driven service. Initially designed for one council, this is now being
more widely adopted under the name LoveCleanStreets. This model has inspired many similar
cloud-based examples that extend existing 311 systems.
 Open Data Solutions—Services such as www.recovery.gov and www.data.gov leverage the
Windows Azure Data Market at a national level in the United States. At the city level,
examples such as Vancouver Open Data (Canada) allow wider access to public information for
third-party developers to create tools and useful applications, reducing agency costs and
resources.
 Online Productivity Tools—In many instances, government agencies are consuming cloud
services, such as Microsoft® Office365 (formerly Microsoft® BPOS), extending collaboration
capabilities to their staff without the capital investment. Agencies in the state of California
and in New York City as well as London, England, and Europe are achieving economies of
scale, lowering costs by up to 40 percent. (See the city of Carlsbad, California, case study.)
The evolution from on-premises to the cloud means governments can change from a capital
investment model to an IT services consumption model. For large central governments, the cloud
offers the possibility to consolidate on a previously unheard-of scale and to use the cloud’s
dynamic capacity to provide resources instantly to accommodate peaks in demand. For smaller
agencies, the cloud provides ready access to services and the ability to pay only for what they
consume—removing the traditionally capital-intensive barriers to acquire new service capacity.
Thus, the cloud has the potential to level the capabilities of agencies, independent of their scale,
and to help enable small agencies to leverage the same ICT capacity as their larger peers.
These examples represent the first innovations in what may be the most significant technology
transformation yet seen. On the other hand, the real world of today’s technology platforms
represents the investment of generations and will not be displaced overnight; indeed, the key to
successfully using the cloud is based on combining the new capabilities with existing legacy
systems that hold data vital to the end user’s experience.
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7. Connected Government Framework
The advantages of today’s technology trends are undeniable: consumerization enables people to
share rich insightful information more widely than ever before. Cloud computing delivers access
to massive computing resources in a scalable and cost-effective manner, and relieves
governments of day-to-day IT management. Microsoft supports these two trends with tools to
help government agencies improve collaboration and provide widespread access to information
for their workers and their citizens. These tools can fuel better decision making, deeper insights,
heightened accountability, and the delivery of more personalized services. As a result,
governments can connect citizens and workers with services, information, and each other to
jointly build a better future.
The Microsoft® Connected Government Framework uses a foundation of interoperability and
standards embedded in Microsoft products to provide a platform for governments to better
serve and engage their citizens, modernize the government to be more efficient and effective,
and help governments be more open and transparent. The Framework aims to facilitate the
conversation between Political Decision Makers and the IT department, showing the way to
leverage infrastructure investment and make smart steps for efficient policy changes. It consists
of four layers:
Layer 1: Government outcomes and aspirations—key policy goals and objectives, such as:
• Improved services and quality of life
• Economic prosperity and sustainability
• Safe and healthy communities
Layer 2: Government Services—the people and processes required to implement the agency
services that are citizen-facing, policy, planning, or resource management.
Layer 3: Solution Areas—Microsoft and partner solutions that fill a particular role in:
• Service Delivery and Engagement
• Workplace Modernization
• Insight and Accountability
• Partner-delivered solutions
Layer 4: ICT infrastructure—the Microsoft suite of products, from Microsoft Office to
Windows Server® to Windows Azure in the cloud and more, that enable government
solutions:
• Core infrastructure
• Business productivity
• Application platform
These four layers are designed to align with the government agency’s business and technology
architecture.
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8. To help visualize scenarios, Microsoft provides an online demonstration network that showcases
examples of government solutions in action and helps to envision what is possible. These solution
demonstrations were created by Microsoft partners who have deep knowledge and expertise in
the business of government and have worked closely with Microsoft to create a solution that
captures the imagination.
Here’s what industry analysts are saying and customers are experiencing in three main areas of
emphasis for Microsoft Connected Government:
Government Service Delivery and Engagement
Microsoft solutions are designed to combine personal citizen information with cloud-sourced
data and services.
“Interoperability is literally the hinge on a door that opens a completely new era of interaction
between government agencies and the citizens they serve. Through our [Microsoft and HP]
partnership, agencies can provide citizens with an integrated, single point of access for government
services while at the same time obtain an integrated view of the data they need to deliver those
services more efficiently and cost-effectively.”
—Enrique Barkey, Worldwide Director of Civilian Agency Solutions, HP
The City of Milan is “Easier” Thanks to Citizen Relationship Management Platform
The contact center created by the city of Milan, Italy, receives almost two million calls per year. In
order to streamline call processing and deliver better municipal services, the city set up a dedicated
phone number for city services and deployed Microsoft Dynamics® CRM as part of the Microsoft®
Citizen Service Platform solution. The system is the first of its kind in Italy, and it simplifies
relationships between local government and city service users. The City of Milan can now better
track service requests, plan assistance interventions, cope with internal production peaks, eliminate
queues at front offices, and reduce costs.
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9. Government Workplace Modernization
Microsoft solutions aim to improve information workers’ productivity through innovative
technologies and optimized process management.
“...In order to meet evolving citizen demand, governments must shift from a citizen-centric to an
employee-centric paradigm, which depends on how government employees change the way they
work and collaborate inside and outside government.”
—Gartner, Inc., “Why Government 2.0 Is Not Government 1.1,” March 2011 (G00210927)
City Government in the US Uses Online Services for Messaging, Saves 40 Percent Annually
In California, the city of Carlsbad employs 1,100 people who rely on up-to-date technology to help
them serve more than 100,000 local citizens. The city’s workforce devotes a lot of time to team-
based projects that require efficient communication and collaboration tools, yet the city had an
aging email service and no collaboration solution. Faced with stringent budget limitations, the city
chose a Microsoft® Online Services solution that provides hosted communication and collaboration
services. The new solution delivers the security and functionality the city needs for desktop and
mobile email, online collaboration tools, and web conferencing. In these tough economic times,
Carlsbad is saving approximately
40 percent annually opting for a hosted solution that provides more productivity-enhancing tools
for its workforce compared to an on-premises solution.
Government Insight and Accountability
Microsoft solutions transform governments through state-of-the-art technologies necessary to
help ensure compliance with laws and regulations, as well as become a more open and
transparent government.
“It’s nearly impossible for agencies to make sense of disparate silos of information. If combined,
however, the data could dramatically improve decision making and save money and resources.”
—Information Week Government Analytics Report, “Government 2.0: Technology Leadership
Redefined,” September 2009
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10. Mexican Statistics Agency Coordinates Data Collection Using Collaboration Portal
When the Mexican Congress passed legislation in 2008, the Instituto Nacional de Estadística y
Geografía (INEGI) became an autonomous agency, responsible for coordinating and managing the
production of statistical and geographic information about the country, including population
figures, economic data, and geographical facts. Because this information is produced by several
different governmental agencies, it was necessary for INEGI to create a way to collaborate and
coordinate with these other agencies. Working with a Microsoft® Gold Certified Partner, INEGI used
Microsoft® SharePoint® Server 2010 to create a collaboration portal in just two months. The portal
provides an easy way for Mexican governmental agencies to interact and collaborate on common
projects that affect the way statistical information is gathered, processed, and published.
Microsoft Supports Interoperability and Standards
The evolution from existing technology to cloud computing is built on existing standards.
Companies, research institutions, and government programs are evolving and adapting existing
technologies to the cloud computing pattern.
At Microsoft, we are focusing on adding value through enhancements to our core technologies
and working to help ensure that all the services in our cloud can be accessed via open protocols
and data formats from any operating system or programming language. Furthermore, we are
supporting a variety of other languages, run-times, web servers, databases, and so forth on our
cloud platforms, just as we do today on-premises. We want to bring our popular Windows®
platform to cloud application development, while increasing openness and interoperability to
meet the needs of our customers.
Microsoft continues to enhance its products with new capabilities that can help reduce the cost
of running a mixed IT environment. For example, the Windows Azure platform is an open, web
addressable platform that supports a host of Microsoft and non-Microsoft languages, open
protocols, popular standards, and technologies. This support enables Microsoft partners and
customers to develop and deploy services quickly and easily by capitalizing on the same skill sets,
development tool investments, and knowledge.
Breadth of Technology Platform
The breadth of the Microsoft platform spans business and consumer applications—from
developer technologies and business computing technologies to the home office to consumer
technologies—including games. This breadth of platform provides governments the capability to
reach citizens and users across multiple devices in a very consistent way. Platform choice is key
for governments doing business on the web; it will have a direct impact on how well they can
take advantage of new opportunities moving forward.
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11. Microsoft Understands the Cloud
Governments’ ability to deploy service channels with as little or as much power from private,
public, or community clouds as they need is what gives the Microsoft cloud story its unique
power. Whether in the cloud or on-premises, Microsoft understands both worlds. With a diverse
portfolio of solutions for private, public, or community clouds, Microsoft and government
agencies can partner to architect a unique strategy to optimize citizen service delivery, as well
provide technology that will be fast to adopt and easy to configure. Microsoft can also work with
governments to understand how the incorporation of the cloud affects their budgets, as well as
ways to financially maximize their cloud investments.
A Strong Partner Ecosystem
For virtually all Microsoft products, there is a broad, global ecosystem of diverse and specialized
partners who can build value-added solutions to government specifications (when necessary) on
top of Microsoft products and then work with government internal IT teams to deploy these
solutions. The Microsoft public sector partner ecosystem boasts an extraordinary quality of
products, solutions, services, and expertise.
Conclusion
While delivering an expansive choice of platforms and scenarios, Microsoft offers a simple vision
of what ICT can do to help governments promote engagement, efficiency, and insight: In an
increasingly connected world, governments need to provide information that follows the user—
be it a citizen, worker, or politician. The Microsoft Connected Government strategy helps enable
better service, greater productivity, and deeper insights—all in an effort to provide more
responsible, efficient, and transparent services.
Governments continue to evolve with the changing dynamics between government entities and
users of public services. By connecting systems, processes, and people, governments not only
better serve and engage their citizens—they help make the business of government more
transparent and accountable to its constituents and modernize the government workplace itself,
thus creating a real impact for better government.
© 2011 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Microsoft, Bing, BizTalk, Microsoft Dynamics, SharePoint, Windows, Windows
Azure, and Windows Server are trademarks of the Microsoft group of companies.
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