MS - Govt needs to work towards cloud adoption

Governments must work to ensure that regulatory frameworks are suited to the cloud, Senior Vice President and General Counsel, Brad Smith, has said in a blog post.

“Cloud computing continues to grow exponentially, as more and more people, businesses and governments experience its powerful potential – from creating incredible cost savings to increased agility and speed for deploying new software solutions, just to name a few,” said Smith.

The same old challenges that prevent cloud computing from reaching its full potential are still present in the form of users needing confidence that as data moves from the desktop to the cloud, it is always private and secure.

Smith says that governments need to take steps to ensure that existing regulatory frameworks are suited to the cloud.

“This means taking a balanced approach with clearly-defined guidelines for cloud vendors to maintain high levels of data protection while not unduly restricting industry’s efforts to create innovative new ways of providing those protections,” he wrote.

Microsoft names three key steps that governments should be taking to achieve this.

1. Develop more balanced and predictable rules governing cloud vendors to enhance legal certainty for cloud services.

2. Create laws that are more results-oriented by ensuring that regulatory rules measure compliance against desired outcomes, rather than freezing in time the means by which an outcome is achieved.

3. Facilitate easier movement of data across borders while maintaining legal protection for consumers.

“Ultimately, this is going to require governments and industry to work together, just as they did in fostering past eras of IT-driven growth,” Smith continued. “Already in Europe, the U.S. and in many countries around the world, governments are starting to collaborate with a variety of industry groups and other stakeholders to map out necessary measures to address the challenges cloud computing presents. These are great first steps.”

You can read the full post here.

Microsoft New Zealand’s National Technology Officer, Mark Rees, told us last year that almost everyone in the company has some obligation to be involved in talking about or selling the cloud.