[January 07, 2011] RightNow Helps Federal Government Shift to Cloud Tweet Jan 07, 2011 (Close-Up Media via COMTEX) -- RightNow, a provider of secure cloud solutions for federal, state and local government agencies, non-profit organizations, and higher education institutions, has spent more than ten years helping government clients deliver transparent, participatory and collaborative government services via the cloud. In a release dated Jan. 4, the Company said RightNow CX, the customer experience suite, can assist government agencies in meeting Federal CIO Vivek Kundra's new plan to reform federal information technology management. "We believe that the Obama administration's plan to reform Federal IT management is a major step in the right direction," said Kevin Paschuck, VP, Public Sector, RightNow. "Our government customers, and the citizens that they serve, have experienced the benefits of cloud computing and enhanced citizen engagement for over 10 years. With this new mandate, the commitment to cloud computing is stronger than ever, and RightNow stands ready to provide the customer experience tools to help achieve its goals." The Obama administration announced its 25-Point Implementation Plan to Reform Federal IT Management, which promises to transform how the government purchases and manages IT resources. Kundra said, "For too long, many government IT projects cost hundreds of millions of dollars more than they should, took years longer than necessary to deploy, and delivered technologies that were obsolete by the time they were completed." To address this challenge, a major premise of the plan is the shift to a Cloud First policy. This mandate requires that each agency identify, within three months, three must move IT services and move one of those services to the cloud within 12 months. The remaining services should transfer to the cloud within the next 18 months. Notably, by 2015, the plan pledges to reduce the number of Federal data centers by at least 800. Additionally, approval is reserved for IT programs that use a modular approach, with customer-facing functionality, applications such as self-service modules, that allow direct communication or interaction with citizens, delivered every six months. ((Comments on this story may be sent to [email protected])) [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]