UK Government Signs Cloud Deal With Huddle

In another sign of its growing commitment to the cloud, the British government has extended its relationship with cloud collaboration and content management provider Huddle.

London-based Huddle already works with more than 60 percent of central government departments including the likes of DEFRA, the Cabinet Office, and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.

Under the terms of a new agreement with the Government, Huddle is the first cloud supplier to recognise government as a single ICT customer, in an effort to reduce costs and deliver increased value for money.

Specific Pricing

Under the new arrangements, any government body, including central government departments, local government, executive agencies, arms-length bodies and NHS agencies, can “benefit from government-specific Huddle pricing, training and support.”

This follows the Coalition governments ongoing efforts to reduce its ICT costs. Last year for example, it renegotiated contracts with large services vendors, by signing ‘memoranda of understanding’ in an effort to cut costs. HP, Oracle, Microsoft, Atos Origin and Capgemini all signed, as well as several other big name IT services firms.

The Huddle agreement meanwhile follows the release last month of the government’s ICT strategy, in which it called for the use of more open source software, as well as highlighting the need to move to cloud computing so as to increase collaboration. The government has previously faced criticism for its procurement and ICT implementation practises.

Cloud Drive

“These agreed terms are evidence of the fact that the cloud is now at the heart of the public sector’s drive to increase efficiency, productivity and achieve cost savings,” said Alastair Mitchell, CEO and co-founder, Huddle.

“Costly on-premise legacy ICT systems that have been deployed to support collaboration are simply not up to the job. Organisations require a secure cross-platform, cross-firewall tool and our figures show that government could save more than £100 million by replacing the likes of SharePoint with Huddle,” he said.

“As this agreement demonstrates, it is possible for start-ups to secure deals with government and move into an area that has been dominated by systems integrators and technology goliaths. Following, David Cameron’s push to support the UK’s technology ecosystem, now is the time for the industry to really shine.”

No More Lost Laptops

“This is an interesting story because of two elements,” Huddle’s Mitchell told eWEEK Europe UK. “It is a clear indication of the government’s intention to use the cloud, as part of their hope to better leverage their buying power and their ability to work with innovative solutions from smaller providers to drive out efficiencies across the government. The second option is the use of the cloud to cut costs.”

Mitchell explained that Huddle has worked with the government for three years now, and has been growing rapidly, with 100 percent year-on-year growth. Indeed Huddle is now used by more than 85,000 organisations worldwide, including Disney, HTC and Kia Motors.

“The government has used Huddle to make their departments work more efficiently in the cloud,” said Mitchell. “It is proving popular because its use can be done in a secure way, and can also be used outside the office. It also ties in nicely with the Government’s drive to cut their infrastructure costs over the next five years.”

“It is a great deal for the government,” said Mitchell. “Over time we estimate that the government will achieve £350 million in costs savings by moving to Huddle.” He arrived at that figure by calculating the cost of moving from on-premise products and software, its support, implementation and licensing costs, to a cloud solution.

“This deal is coming into force now and we expect to see huge uptake in the NHS, local government, as well as government departments,” Mitchell said. “It is a nice story as the government is embracing the cloud to deliver big cost reductions. For example Huddle costs £10 per person per month, whereas an on-premise solution is more likely to cost £77 per people, per month. If you multiple that by thousands, it is huge, that is why it is so beneficial.”

“It also means that stories of civil servants leaving laptops on trains, unsecured emails should decrease, as Huddle allows them to work securely,” said Mitchell, who pointed out that the government’s uptake of cloud solutions is leading that of the industry.

“The government is actually leading on this (uptake of cloud), ahead of corporates,” Mitchell said.