By Teresa Carlson, Vice President, Microsoft Federal
New York is without a doubt one of the most influential cities in the world, and thanks to a groundbreaking technology announcement today, it promises to also be one of the most efficient. At a press conference this morning, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer unveiled an IT modernization initiative that will save New York City taxpayers millions of dollars in the coming years, in addition to improving citizen services and expanding information sharing capabilities across City agencies. As part of the project, 30,000 City workers are moving to the cloud, accessing communications and collaboration tools (email, instant messaging, conferencing, etc.) hosted in a Microsoft datacenter facility. This hosting model is significantly less expensive than if the City were to host its own applications, and workers will have access to more productivity features, more functionality and the highest levels of security.
The initiative, led by Mayor Bloomberg and NYC’s Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications, is really about consolidation and taking advantage of shared resources. Like many cities and many large enterprises, New York’s current IT infrastructure is challenged by fragmentation and siloed technology. City agencies are maintaining their own IT environments, which is expensive and limits data sharing opportunities with other government organizations. This project aims to centralize resources like servers and databases across agencies, efficiently distributing computing power and allowing systems to talk to each other.
The agreement will also greatly expand New York’s Gov 2.0 capabilities! With more residents than any other city in the country, it’s essential for New York to have tools in place to collect citizen feedback and distribute important public information. For example, the City has expressed significant interest in using technologies like Town Hall to facilitate online discussion groups with engaged constituents. Cloud technologies will also make open government datasets available to the public, increasing transparency and allowing citizens to build new applications based on public data. If there was ever a U.S. city that could benefit from crowdsourcing, it would be New York and the 8 million residents that have a stake in improving their communities.
This is a major step for New York City in terms of getting the most for taxpayer dollars and providing citizens with a more efficient and effective government. New York is tackling our country’s biggest challenges – from healthcare to social services to education – and this IT modernization initiative will transform the way the City delivers services.
For more information on this exciting announcement, visit the NYC website!