Amazon.com targets government for cloud computing sales - Dayton Business Journal:

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But Amazon is also eyeing another potentia customer forits cloud: government. The company has quietly set up an operation inthe Washington, area, and is aiming to become a key technologt provider to federal and state governments and the U.S. The Obama administration’s growing interest in clouf computing, and the sheed size of government, make it a compelling market. The federaol government market for cloud service is projected to growto $800 milliojn by 2013 from $277 million last year, and the statr and local cloud market is expecteed to grow to $635 million by 2013 from $170 millionj last year, according to Input, a government contracting research firm based in Va.
To be sure, Amazon faces competitionb for government cloud business from a variety oftechnologyg companies, including , and . Governmentws are notoriously slow adopters ofnew technology, and have stringent security and regulatory requirements that may be barrierzs to moving services into the cloud. But Amazon is clearly positioning itselfv to workwith governments. The onlinwe retailer has set up an initiativcalled “Amazon Government Solutions” that is targeting state and clients, according to job postingsa on the company’s careers website.
Amazon has also hirede two former federal government employees who have been turninhg up at various clouc computing conferences inthe Washington, D.C., area. One is CJ whose online LinkedIn profile describes him as a former AssistangtSection Chief. The other is Andrew Doane, whose LinkedIn profile indicatesx he was previouslya “technical with the U.S. government. Askedc about Amazon’s presence in Washington, D.C., company spokeswoman Kay Kinton “we do have employees in the D.C. area focused on a varietyt of efforts, with government agencies being just one of Amazon did establish a relationship with one governmengt client that may pay dividends inthe future.
The Districr of Columbia government linedup Amazon’s cloud servicees to provide extra capacity for the city’ s websites during the inauguration of Presidenyt Barack Obama in January. The city at the time made only modesy useof Amazon’s cloud, but the deal provided some useful exposurw for Amazon. D.C.’s chief technology officer at the Vivek Kundra, went on to becomer the federal government’s chief informationh officer under Obama, and has been an advocatd for increasing the use of cloud services by governmenft agencies.
The White House recently releaser an analysis with its 2010 budget request that calld fora “fundamental re-examination of investments in technologyt infrastructure” and envisions various government cloud-computing piloyt projects. The pilots will produce expected savings “many times the original investment” as agencies reduce theier use of data centers. Despitr the growing buzz in government circles aroundcloud however, some experts say it’s stil a long way to becoming the norm.
“There is a tremendouxs amount of excitement and interest and a lot of peopler are talkingabout it, but I don’t believe we’ve hit the stagde where there’s massive said Peter Mell, a senior computer scientist and cloud computing project leader at the ’s .