SAP looks to Australia for e-government global best practice
2 Dec 2014
Germany’s enterprise software giant SAP plans to spend A$150 million on a cloud computing centre in Australia that will act as global hub for showcasing best practices for public sector use of digital technologies and services.
SAP’s first Institute for Digital Government and a new data centre will be set up in Australia’s capital, Canberra, home to the federal government and public service. Both facilities are due to open in the second quarter of 2015.
‘With federal, state and local agencies embracing cloud as well as real-time business processes and citizen services, Australia is a world leader in applying technology to support more efficient government and government services. This makes the nation the optimal location and investment destination for our public sector innovation efforts’, Simon Paris, President of Industry Cloud, SAP SE, said in a company statement.
The Institute will employ 250 skilled staff including developers, solution architects and services professionals who will work with government agencies, universities and partner organisations.
‘Project teams will work in virtual and physical innovation centres aligned to domains in government services, including social protection, defence and shared services. Outcomes from these projects can be developed further – solely or in collaboration with participating organisations – toward eventual commercialisation, deployment and adoption,’ SAP said.
The Institute will include a showcase facility and briefing centre housing prototypes and proofs of concept which leverage cloud, mobile and analytics solutions powered by SAP’s new software platform SAP HANA. These will enable physical and virtual collaboration among public sector officials and business and technical subject-matter experts.
Economy-wide, Australia is ideally positioned to capitalise on the cloud computing revolution. In the 2013 BSA Cloud Computing Scorecard, measuring 24 economies which make up 80 per cent of the global ICT market, Australia ranked second, only behind Japan.
The Australian Government’s Cloud Computing Policy empowers federal government agencies to take a ‘cloud first’ approach, through which agencies must adopt cloud technologies where they are fit for purpose, provide adequate data protection and deliver value for money.
SAP opened a HANA Enterprise Cloud data centre in Sydney in April this year.
SAP is a market leader in enterprise application software, used by more than 263,000 customers globally.