One of the early papers to come out of the project is a look at how the city of Busan, in South Korea, is using cloud-based city services to improve efficiency, reduce emissions and serve its residents better.
With the cloud, the City is streamlining and consolidating these three systems into one, reducing outages, improving security and ensuring that all employees who need access to email and desktop applications have them.
ENGADGET: Microsoft to provide cloud services for city of Chicago in four year deal
"The cloud strategy gives City employees the ability to do their jobs more effectively while saving taxpayer dollars, decreasing duplication among departments and streamlining our operations across the board, " said Brett Goldstein, the City's Chief Information Officer and the Commissioner of the Department of Innovation and Technology (DoIT).
ENGADGET: Microsoft to provide cloud services for city of Chicago in four year deal
This cloud strategy represents the first of the City's "enterprise, " or city-wide systems to migrate to the cloud.
ENGADGET: Microsoft to provide cloud services for city of Chicago in four year deal
Ms Sturgeon said she was proud to live in and represent Glasgow, but told delegates: "A political cloud hangs over that great city".
With big players like Amazon and Google in the Cloud Service Provision business, and organizations as diverse as Reddit and the City of Los Angeles using those services, cloud computing promises huge savings in cost and complexity.
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Producteev : Based in New York City, Producteev offers cloud-based social task management tools.
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For example, Ohio, Texas, New York South Carolina and Washington tax computing services directly, while Utah and the City of Chicago tax the cloud only when deals involve the transfer of control or possession of software as well as computing services, according to national tax-services company WTAS. At least two states, Vermont and Idaho, have recently passed rules to explicitly exempt cloud-based services from state sales tax.
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One such moment occurred for me in 1997, as I watched my brother pilot Cloud Strife through the ruins of the Forgotten City while Aerith Gainsborough clasped her hands in prayer.
From downtown Cape Town, cable cars ascend the hulking mass of Table Mountain, which looms above the city and sometimes disappears into the cloud covering, known locally as the tablecloth.
It reappeared shortly afterward, on the opposite side of the city, popping out from behind a cloud, bathing Harlem and the East River in a chalky light, and, as though caught by a gust of wind, it rolled toward the Bronx.
The City currently stores and manages some data in a cloud solution, such as the Chicago Department of Aviation's data related to airline billing and building plan information as part of the Department of Buildings' E-Plan review system.
ENGADGET: Microsoft to provide cloud services for city of Chicago in four year deal
DoIT anticipates that all email and desktop application users will migrate to the cloud by the end of 2013 and will provide guidance and training to City employees throughout this process to ensure smooth implementation.
ENGADGET: Microsoft to provide cloud services for city of Chicago in four year deal
Last week, Penguin announced a pilot program to allow public libraries in New York City and Brooklyn to lend out its e-books via 3M's Cloud Drive service.
CNN: E-book lending: Your public library's best kept secret?
Some critics note that other industrial areas around the city haven't fared as well, with less robust public investment and a cloud of uncertainty over whether spaces could be converted to hotels or office spaces that have made companies reluctant to invest.
Amateur video show by Russian television depicted a white streak of light like the cloud from a jetliner quickly expanding to a large white ball that eventually sent shock waves throughout the city of Chelyabinsk.
The new cloud system encompasses all email and desktop applications (such as documents and spreadsheets) for 30, 000 City employees across all City departments.
ENGADGET: Microsoft to provide cloud services for city of Chicago in four year deal
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