Cloud computing: 20 percent savings in five years?

The government of the United Kingdom finally published details of a strategy to take most of its computing capabilities to the cloud, which could cut its information technology bill by around 20 percent in the next five years, the Guardian reports.

Add to that the intention to greatly expand the use of open-source software on both central and local government desktops, and the creation of a government app store, and it seems the U.K. is vying for the job as the poster child for next-generation government computing.

It also has plans to replace many of the government’s phone land lines with voice over IP by 2017.

At least as far as speed is concerned, the announcement is a commendable. It was only last summer that the U.K. government published its Digital Britain plan in which it described plans for the G-Cloud.

Let’s take some time to let this sink in, however, because plans are one thing and implementation is another. As The Independent reported a few weeks ago, the U.K.’s success in pushing through these kinds of IT programs isn’t great.

Does all of this have any import for the U.S.? Could be, given that our own feds have shown some desire for the cloud and open systems stuff, particularly after the Obama administration took the reins. How closely the U.K. scenario (centralized government, parliament, socialism, blah, blah) comes to the U.S. style of (cough, cough) dysfunction is another thing, however.