Conroy walks the exhibition floor at CeBIT 2013
Communications minister Senator Stephen Conroy, has revealed the government’s National Strategy for Cloud Computing, at the CeBIT Conference in Sydney.
“Cloud computing has reached its tipping point, it’s no longer a trend,” Conroy told the audience. “It’s an absolute business requirement, by freeing business from its infrastructure limitations and associated capital expenses, cloud services are purely innovation and driving productivity.
“Cloud computing is fundamentally changing the way we think about technology — it allows software and data storage to be delivered online and be consumed as services, on demand, across your computer, tablet and smart phone.”
The strategy will provide government agencies, businesses and consumers with tools and information required to help adopt Cloud services.
The strategy will see the Australian Government open up its annual $5 billion a year spend on ICT to Cloud computing, which will require government agencies to consider cloud services for new IT purchases.
It will also aid in promoting Cloud computing to small businesses, non-for-profit organisations and local government as well as support the Cloud services sector through competition, a technology workforce and regulatory settings, which will be provided by the Australian Computer Society.
"Without Labor's NBN, cloud computing cannot reach its full potential in Australia, which would leave us behind the rest of the world,” Conroy said. “Labor's NBN will revolutionise access to the cloud. The NBN's fast download, and most importantly, upload capacity mean Australians can use applications in the cloud quickly and reliably.”
