Hundreds of thousands of US public sector workers have access to cloud-based collaboration software from UK IT firm Huddle after two major US government departments sign up.
A version of Huddle used by the UK government, which sits on a private cloud, is now available to the US government. At the same time, the US government will start using the public cloud version, which is available to any business in the world.
The Department of Homeland Security's Science and Technology Directorate (DHS S&T), and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) will use the same version as the UK government with hundreds of thousands of potential individual users.
The software was selected by IQT, a non-profit firm that identifies innovative technology to support the missions of the US Intelligence Community.
”We are excited about Huddle’s technology platform and the opportunities for secure collaboration it has the potential to provide for our Intelligence Community customers,” said Robert Ames, senior vice-president of Information and Communication Technologies at IQT. “We look forward to building upon the company’s ongoing success in both the government and commercial markets.”
The use of cloud-based collaboration by an organisation with the highest levels of security is further proof that cloud security fears are being overcome.
Alastair Mitchell, CEO at Huddle (pictured), said that the deal is evidence that the cloud is the most secure place to do business. “Even the security-conscious US government is making use of it.”
He said government agencies will use the public version but a private alternative is necessary. The government always has information that cannot be connected to the internet.
Mitchell said the public sector has been the biggest success for the company. For example, over 80% of sales in the first month in the government’s G-Cloud app store were Huddle. He added for similar reasons the financial services industry is beginning to take up the service.
