The following is the third in a three-part blog series about the VMware Journey to your cloud in the public sector. The previous installment, outlined Phase 2-—Business Production.  This third installment describes the final segment of the journey: Phase 3 – IT as a Service.

Phase 3 – IT as a Service: To infinity… and beyond

We’ve already seen the benefits of the second phase of the VMware Journey, Business Production, where organizations virtualize their business-critical applications and the IT staff is freed to support end users with updated tools and services. In the public sector, that includes everyone from students and teachers to policeman and citizen constituents.  

By this stage of the game, the organization is humming along smoothly. The virtual infrastructure is pretty much maintaining itself. And different areas of the organization are on-board with their virtualized applications.

What comes next? Innovation to make things even better.

For too long, IT has been a drain on an organization’s budget – a necessary evil to keep the machines humming but not much help when it came to making things better. But in the phase of the Journey, IT finally has its chance to shine by offering business value at the lowest possible cost. Imagine your IT organization given a chance to brainstorm ways for the organization to save more money or offer additional services. Better yet, imagine your IT team with the time and resources to make those new features a reality.

During this final phase of the journey, the organization approaches the desired end-state of an enterprise hybrid cloud, in which IT provides the highest business value at the lowest possible cost: IT as a service (ITaaS).

A good example is the State of Michigan’s MiCloud Automated Hosting Services (AHS)  solution, which recently won the  NASCIO (National Association of State CIO) Fast Track Award. Everyone talks about “The Cloud,”. but Michigan has captured the numerous benefits of cloud computing, rapidly transforming the way we deliver IT services to government,” said Bob McDonough, Lead Cloud Architect, Office of Enterprise Architecture, State of Michigan, Department of Technology, Management and Budget (DTMB). When our clients demanded ’more for less’ , we delivered MiCloud – a fully automated self-service cloud platform on a fast track in early 2011. Cloud Computing is not something you buy.  It is something you do.“

In planning MiCloud, the State of Michigan IT team did not request additional expenditures.  Automated Hosting (AH) in the new ITaaS solution breaks barriers to consolidation, standardization, virtualization, and optimization through innovation.  Thus, the AHS solution was able to provide immediate budget relief with an enterprise service that supports legacy application modernization, consolidation and infrastructure optimization.  Overall, the MiCloud solution delivered VMs that run 99 percent faster and cost 75 percent less to operate with a projected ROI of 248 percent. 

The state of Michigan not only realized early cost savings, but through the benefits of a private cloud managed to improve quality of services to its customers and ultimately provide additional business agility. “All state agencies are beneficiaries,” said Bob McDonough, DTMB spokesperson for the MiCloud Fast Track NASCIO nomination. “State of Michigan decision makers gain the freedom to take risks and try new strategies, to succeed or fail quickly, then move on.  Citizens and businesses enjoy service innovations sooner and appreciate the value for money delivered as a taxpayer.”

Empowering Departments and End Users

Ideally at this stage, every IT service is fully defined in terms of its components, resources, and delivery guarantees. Different units or departments within an agency or school can select and obtain resources through a standardized and automated self-service catalog or on-demand. This reduces provisioning time to a fraction of what it once was. These groups are expensed for IT services via transparent chargeback and detailed reporting.

With a highly automated, low-maintenance cloud infrastructure in place, IT can focus on delivering innovations that enable new services, drive down costs and enhance the student or citizen experience. Consider what the cloud has done for Oxford University, one of the premier research universities in the world.

After saving money and consolidating resources through virtualization, the Oxford IT team created a cloud database that allows researchers to move their data from isolated servers to an online searchable database that others can access to enhance their own research.

This virtual database as a service solution has helped Oxford reduce costs while liberating their data. Researchers can now share data more widely and across traditional organizational boundaries — perhaps in read-only format for other departments within the university, other universities or even the general public.

At Oxford, virtualization set the stage for fast and expanded access to research data, but that represents just one of a myriad of examples. A police department, for example, might place greater focus on developing applications to support mobile communications or identify suspects. School administrators, on the other hand, might channel more resources to tools for responding to emergencies and communicating in real time with security officers, faculty, students and their parents.

Sometimes bold new action is required – leveraging IT to cut costs is not new, but emphasizing agile technology as a key enabler can represent a true paradigm shift for the public sector. This final phase on the journey to the cloud is really just the beginning of an evolutionary process.  

IT as a service for the public sector is an evolution from brittle cost-burdened, server-centric IT operations to flexible IT operations where any workload can be provisioned, monitored and managed from anywhere in the cloud—and at the lowest possible, utility-based pricing, with cost transparency. When a cloud architecture is in place, IT in the public sector gains the opportunity to innovate and bring new value to an organization –not only providing budget relief but also tackling the innovative and critical new projects that deliver a whole new level of value to students and citizens.

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Business Production: Not just keeping the lights on, but making them shine brighter

The following is the second in a three-part blog series about the VMware Journey to your cloud in the public sector. The first installment introduced the VMware Journey and its multiple phases and outlined Phase 1 – IT Production: Lower Costs and First Steps through Virtualization.  

 This second installment describes Phase 2—Business Production. 

Virtualization is an important technology in its own right, but in the context of cloud computing it’s best viewed as a foundational technology that gets the journey started. Virtualization helps lower costs and streamline IT services, but it’s in Phase 2—what we call  Business Production—where the services being offered are enhanced and the benefits begin to accelerate. 

We refer to this phase as Business Production because it focuses on business-critical applications that can benefit dramatically from the uptime, increased availability and easier maintenance afforded by virtualization.  With IT operating more smoothly, the organization can shift its focus toward improving the tools that enhance the business – instead of constantly struggling to keep up with outages, updates and user demands. 

Improving the business-critical application experience in public sector organizations starts with bringing key applications (e.g., a class registration application for students or an online driver’s license renewal tool for citizens) into the cycle. With automated IT tools reducing overhead and eliminating cumbersome maintenance tasks, the IT team can shift its focus to building or improving tools that deliver new services and capabilities to the ultimate end-users.

In education, the end user community includes the students, faculty and administration. In government agencies, it includes citizens, business owners, voters and drivers, among other stakeholders. Research shows that once word spreads about a more cost-effective, high availability solution for mission-critical applications, departments and divisions within an organization start sharing wish lists about the tools and features that will make their lives – and the lives of their constituents – much easier.

Consider what the cloud has done for Indiana University, part of the Big Ten Conference, but also recognized as a leading university for academia and research with over 110,000 students and 8 geographically dispersed campuses.  Through VMware virtualization, they consolidated over 90 percent of their servers, including Tier 1 applications such as Oracle databases, ERP financial and HR systems, and even their online course management system, the university’s most publicly visible application.  This university drastically cut costs, lowered energy usage, and provided a more efficient IT infrastructure for its students and faculty.  The overall project was clearly a success- in terms of saving money, but also by building operational efficiencies and improving business agility.

It’s during this Business Production phase that developers can expand their vision for applications, bringing enhanced functionality to users and new services to key constituents, whether they are faculty, students, employees or the citizens they serve. A police department, for example, might  place greater focus on developing applications to support mobile communications or identify suspects. School administrators, on the other hand, might channel more resources to tools for responding to emergencies and communicating in real time with security officers, faculty, students and their parents.

Consider the example of a national food inspection agency that was facing new regulatory challenges.

A cloud solution allowed the agency, among other things, to better monitor livestock; produce and processed food items in near real-time as they moved from source to supermarket. Beyond that, the agency started to look at how to enhance that information even further. To keep track of sources of food contaminants, for example, those data files can be integrated with information from other government agencies, as well as agencies from other countries. 

At this point in the process, the benefits and the cost savings are obvious. But what’s the next step? Can organizations find other ways to leverage cloud technology to bring an even greater return-on-investment? In the third and final phase of the journey, as organizations deploy IT as a service, the possibilities become almost unlimited.

The Public Sector Journey to the Cloud: Dramatic Benefits in Measured Phases

It’s here. It’s real. It may be called cloud computing, but it’s not all vapor. In fact, the benefits of cloud are now being touted not just by vendor advocates, but by independent research as well. Studies show that hardware and maintenance costs can drop anywhere from 20 to nearly 45 percent with a cloud strategy. At the same time, IT worker productivity increases as provisioning time drops by as much as 14 percent and business apps are deployed 25 percent faster. Overall, organizations adopting cloud models report a 17 percent increase in available hardware and personnel costs. In the public sector, those are resources that can be used to compensate for budget shortfalls or directed toward improvements in services to citizens or students.

But like any major shift in strategy that promises great benefits, the transition to cloud computing can’t be achieved in a single leap forward. At VMware, our experience shows us that this transformation is best approached as a phased process that requires IT organizations to follow a roadmap and track their goals and benchmarks along the way. 

For the public sector – notably, government agencies and educational institutions – the journey to the cloud can be especially challenging. Outside forces – such as natural disasters, unexpected budget cuts or even temporary spikes in demand caused by tough economic times and increased need for education or public services – can impact the demands on a public sector IT shop and the resources available to meet them. As such, the cloud strategy for schools and government agencies is likely to be different from that of private sector organizations of similar size.

Every organization embarks on the cloud journey with a different outcome or end state in mind; yet, every traveler needs a roadmap to get where they want to go.  The VMware Journey, as illustrated above, is a proven and practical implementation roadmap designed to deliver benefits to customers of every kind and size, public sector and private.  It consists of three phases, and during each phase IT becomes more agile, responsive, and efficient. In other words, the benefits increase while IT costs go down. The journey culminates in a cloud that is uniquely yours—a private, public, or hybrid cloud environment perfectly aligned with your organization’s needs and goals.

My goal in this new series of blogs is to guide you through the VMware Journey, one phase at a time. This three-part look at the journey to the cloud will focus  on the public sector and how a cloud strategy can not only help you save taxpayer dollars and resources, but also provide better services to the citizens and students who will benefit most from this transformative model for IT.

Phase 1 – IT Production: Lower Costs and First Steps through Virtualization

If the cloud is something that’s reached through a journey, then the vehicle to get there is virtualization. The goal of the first phase of the journey to the cloud is to save money and consolidate resources and that’s what happens with virtualization. Existing server and storage capacity is maximized and maintenance costs actually go down as automation and other virtual infrastructure management tools start having an effect.

While virtualization doesn’t always lead to cloud computing, it enables you to take the next step into cloud computing without a protracted effort. Experts say that the push into cloud computing can begin with as little as 20 percent of the datacenter virtualized and that the two processes – virtualization and the rollout of a cloud strategy – can evolve side-by-side. In fact, research has found that the potential for cost savings actually increases when a cloud strategy is launched early in the virtualization process.

In most cases, this phase enables selected workloads – such as test and development and pre-production quality assurance – to be rolled out into a secure public, hybrid or private cloud for test runs. The early adoption allows time for hands-on exposure to cloud operations and a better understanding of the operational benefits that cloud architectures offer. This is something that will come into play in later steps along the journey.

To get a sense of the some of the efficiency improvements – and savings- that can result from the first phase, consider how the California Department of Water Resources, which created a new central datacenter by standardizing its virtualization infrastructure, has saved $2.2 million in maintenance costs, consolidated more than 200 server racks to four, reduced power consumption by 40 percent and lowered cooling costs by half.

Likewise, the city of Alexandria, Louisiana, which started its journey to the cloud in 2003, is now saving about $300,000 annually in labor costs.

Some of the savings come from the end of weekend overtime for routine maintenance that couldn’t be conducted during weekday hours because of service interruptions. More than 750 end-users – from the utility division’s call center and the laptop-armed patrol officers to the city’s animal shelter and zoo – are supported by a staff of seven. And because much of the once-cumbersome tasks have become automated, that staff of seven actually spends less time dealing with small problems and instead focuses on building and enhancing applications that not only serve city employees but also a population of citizens who expect instant online access to city services. 

As public sector customers demonstrate across both government and education, the benefits of Phase 1 of the journey can be dramatic, while setting the stage for continued transformation.  In the next installment of this blog I’ll discuss Phase 2 of the journey, where business-critical applications are virtualized and the benefits are compounded.

Sometimes, going through something really bad can help us discover something really good.

My really bad happened earlier this year. After an amazing fight, my younger brother lost his battle with cancer. It was a devastating time for my family and, at that moment, I would have never guessed that something positive might ever stem from it.

But then, at the end of March, I went to France to participate in “La Course du Coeur” – roughly
translated as “The Race for the Heart,” It’s a 750-kilometer biking-and-relay event that takes teams of participants from Paris to French Alps to help raise awareness of the importance of organ donation.

I was on the Cloud Running team, one of 14 in the event. Our team was made up of people representing VMware business partners, Cisco and Accenture, as well as other public sector
customers. In business, we work hard as teams to develop and provide the advanced tools that transform IT environments for our customers. On the course, that spirit of partnership was still there. 

Together, we traveled the French countryside, pushing our physical limits on foot and on bicycle and supporting each other along the way, both on and off the course. It was a powerful feeling to realize that I worked for a company that so strongly supports giving back that I was actually able to be doing this.

The people experiencing the adventure by my side weren’t business partners on that course. They were teammates, working together for a common cause. Likewise, each of our companies offered us the support we needed to do this. Through the VMWare Foundation, employees are granted five paid days to volunteer in a way that gives something back. It was inspiring for me to see what my colleagues had been doing to give back to their communities.

I believe in organ donation and am happy to support it. CNN reports that, on average, 18 people in the United States die each day waiting for an organ transplant. I’m proud to support organ donation efforts and I applaud Facebook for recently launching a campaign that encourages its nearly 1 billion members to identify themselves as potential organ donors on their Facebook pages.

I’ve seen the impact first hand through the amazing people that I met during my adventure in France. Some of participants on the route were more than just supporters of organ donation.
They were organ recipients – livers, hearts, kidneys and more – and here they were going through some of the same physical endurances that I was going through.

And that’s when I realized how truly powerful this event was for me. Here I was among people – some who, like my own brother, had once faced potentially life-ending health problems – and they were running and cycling as if… well, as if they’d just received a new heart or other vital organ.

What they actually received was a second chance at life. Through the caring donation of someone who agreed to donate his organs when he died, these people had a second chance at life.

The funny thing was that, even though my physical health had never been in danger, the spark of life that filled these people was enough to give me a metaphoric second chance at life, too. I had come to participate in this event to help support our partnership with Cisco, Accenture and our public sector community. And while I was able to do that, I also picked up a little French saying to explain what I had gained from participating in this event.

 The French call it La Joie de Vivre. Roughly translated, it means: Zest for Life.

If there’s one state agency that could use a boost of technological innovation, it’s the Department of Motor Vehicles.

From state-to-state, the agency that manages identification cards, vehicles and driving privileges is a powerful arm of the government. The DMV knows when we get a traffic ticket or have been involved in an accident. It knows who owns our cars and who insures them. It has copies of our fingerprints.

And yet, the DMV in most states still operates in an inefficient and outdated way – walk in, take a number and have a seat, regardless of how simple or how complex the transaction might be.

I was visiting the DMV recently, sitting among those who were waiting for their number to be called, when I noticed that some of my fellow drivers were killing time by tapping away on their smartphones and tablet computers. Imagine, I thought to myself, if the DMV could take advantage of those same advanced technology products to accelerate the less-complicated transactions and help those with more complicated transactions to barrel through them in half the time.

As I sat there, I started to imagine this DMV nirvana and realized that it doesn’t have to be some sort of futuristic dream. Technology for turning this vision into reality – notably, VMware’s View Client for the iPad – already exists and could be the springboard to pull the DMV into the 21st Century.

Related blog: VMware product moves both big and small

Technology for Business Transformation

VMware is a big advocate of business transformation via IT transformation and, with some imagination, the DMV could benefit from similar thinking. What’s needed, first and foremost, is support for the right sort of thin clients on an already advanced device. That’s what schools across the US and other parts of the world are already doing, expanding access to their information and streamlining key processes such as student registration.

The results include processes that are faster, more efficient and less prone to error, as well as more satisfying to students and other stakeholders. There’s no reason that a state agency like the DMV couldn’t realize the same cost and time savings, along with improvements in citizen satisfaction.

Imagine There’s No Waiting

My imagination started to run wild with possibilities for a transformed DMV. Imagine if…

… the DMV became an iPad-powered kiosk at the shopping mall or grocery store where simple transactions – such as renewing your registration or driver’s license – were handled in two minutes instead of the entire afternoon. I can picture an Apple Store-like process where iPad-carrying clerks use the iPad and its technologies, such as the built-in camera, to snap a new driver’s license picture or verify a fingerprint securely and quickly.

… the iPad revolutionized vehicle verification. The DMV could outsource the duties to a trusted, iPad-carrying third-party vendor who comes to you and your vehicle on your schedule, just the same way a notary public makes house or office calls. The iPad client would allow the vendor to access the data associated with the vehicle, make corrections or changes to the data and then upload pictures of the vehicle, its identification number and license plate. In 10 minutes, the process would be finished.

… car dealers were able to access the necessary databases and process all of the digital paperwork on-site, issuing license plates, registration stickers and updated registration cards before the new owners drove away.

…driving schools had the ability to administer written tests, certify and upload the results, grab a fingerprint image and snap a picture of a new driver – and completely eliminate the need for a trip to the DMV.

Keeping Things Simple

None of this is to suggest that the DMV be shut down and all of its operations outsourced. Certainly, there will always be complex transactions that will require an office visit. Lost title certificates, multiple ownership transfers and salvaged vehicles are the sort of transactions that need more time and expertise. But why should those folks bog down the rest of process, forcing those of us with simple transactions to wait for hours just to hand over a couple of documents and payment to a clerk?

Imagine if DMV offices became the size of nail salons or coffee shops and moved to strip malls where folks with appointments could come to take care of those more complex transactions.

These types of changes don’t have to be the pipe dream of someone whose imagination went wild during an extended wait time at the DMV. This vision can be reality today – and another example of how advanced IT technology can benefit not only businesses and public agencies but also the people they serve.

Colleen McMillan, Director of Global Public Sector Solutions
To learn more about our public sector programs, you can follow us on Twitter @VMwareGov and @VMwareEdu or Facebook http://www.facebook.com/vmwarepublicsector

The VMware Accelerate Advisory team is helping public sector agencies put the best practices, solutions and processes in place for successful technology deployments.

A state office of Information Technology was working toward meeting a savings mandate of $150 million per year when it invested in server virtualization. But the government office needed more than just technology. It needed a strategy that went beyond a knee-jerk reaction to shrinking budgets. It needed to find a way to use its new investment to modernize the support and services it was offering to various agencies and departments across the state.

That’s why it turned to the VMware Accelerate Advisory Services team. The role of this expert team is to work with companies and agencies to identify the best technologies, best practices and best configurations to meet the specific needs and objectives of a customer.

The key behind the team and its Accelerate Program is the knowledge that technology doesn’t work in a one-size-fits-all manner. Companies, government agencies, schools and other customers all have different needs, different objectives and certainly different budgets. They need plans that are unique to them.

Building on Virtualization

For this particular state IT office, which has documented its success in a case study in company whitepaper a company whitepaper the solution called for building on its investment in virtualized servers and evolving its traditional IT services into an IT-as-a -service approach. The objective was to provide faster, more flexible and more scalable resources, as well as a better computing experience and value propositions that demonstrated its benefits over public cloud offerings.

But that conclusion only came after weeks of assessing the office’s existing environments and mitigating breakdowns, bottlenecks and other concerns so that it could shift its primary focus from that of support to one of services. That change in approach would include development of higher quality apps without the limitations of hardware provisioning bottlenecks.

As this government office demonstrated, the Accelerate Advisory Services team doesn’t dwell on the capabilities of the technology, but on identifying the needs of the specific customer and determining a strategy, configuration and rollout plan that works best for everyone involved.

Helping Agencies See the Future

Reid Engstrom, VMware Chief Strategist, Accelerate Advisory Services – Americas, said that state governments and other organizations turn to the Accelerate program because they have a “hazy view of where they want to get, but they need a roadmap and a compelling desired-state direction for building trust in stakeholders and aligning staff. For them, we are the experts in virtualization and cloud technologies and they are looking to us to help develop that roadmap and strategy.”

Public agencies, in particular, have faced some unique situations, he said. For starters, unexpected budget cuts have become a reality. But agencies also face the challenges of driving consolidation and adoption of a standard set of services among a mostly resistant group of workers, especially when there are multiple divisions and departments that fall under a government’s larger umbrella, each with their own sets of needs.

Engstrom explained that the right mix of products and services that an agency might need is only part of the solution. The Accelerate team also works with the CIOs and CTOs to understand the process, the people and how they’ll respond to change and the politics of corporate IT, including the engagement with senior management teams to help them define their own strategies.

Taking a Citizen-Centered View

He said the team typically spends four to six weeks “really getting into the agency’s processes, understanding the lay of the land and the existing challenges.” The agencies don’t necessarily have a clear view of what the future looks like but they know they have a lot of short-term problems they need to solve. The group helps the agency think like a corporation – but recognizes that the end-user isn’t just an office worker trying to access some data.

For government agencies, the end users can be everyday folks trying to apply for unemployment benefits online or pay their car registration fees. Increasingly, those same citizens are expecting their tax-funded agencies to keep up with the times by offering mobile apps and real-time updates to data. These users don’t want to know that legacy hardware and software are outdated and staffing resources have fallen victim to budget cuts.

It’s a tough spot to be in if you’re the one charged with moving the entire umbrella to a virtual environment. Without the right plan, there’s a risk of an underutilized investment in technology or worse. The Accelerate team, which has grown from three people to 30 in a matter of two years, understands the power of the technology and is ready to offer more than its two cents on how to roll out a money-saving, improved efficiency environment.

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In the 1996 movie Jerry McGuire, there’s a great scene between a disgruntled pro athlete eager to land a big-money contract, played by Cuba Gooding Jr., and a something-to-prove sports agent determined to keep his client, played by Tom Cruise.

Every time I hear a public sector agency talk about putting off an investment in money-saving technology simply because there’s no money in the budget, I think of that iconic movie scene, specifically the crescendo of the heated phone conversation where the athlete gets the agent to scream “Show me the money!” over and over.

Like the agent in that movie, my goal here is to highlight some creative examples of the money that public sector agencies can get their hands on – outside of their own budgets – to fund technology upgrade projects.

Looking for Funds in All the Right Places

The current-year federal transportation budget, for example, has a number of areas where funds might be used for a technology investment to meet the criteria of a grant. The budget, for example, sets aside $44 Million to enhance the data-crunching process for traffic records as a means of improving highway safety. It also called for $661 Million to fund research, technology and education for a program that accelerates innovation and advanced technology for the Department of Transportation. And it also sets aside $32 Billion for states to develop reforms of their transportation systems through various means, including technology investments.

Another example is the grants awarded last year by the U.S. Department of Labor  to modernize unemployment tax and benefits systems across the country, with hopes that states can do a better job of preventing, detecting and recovering improper unemployment insurance payments. What was particularly interesting was that, of the $191 million allocated for the grants, nearly two-thirds of the funds ($128 million) were split among 11 states for technology infrastructure consortium projects.

Foundation Grants for Education

On the education side, government officials – all the way to up to the White House – have talked long about modernizing schools and giving students the tools they’ll need to compete in a global economy. To accomplish that, schools are putting more emphasis on STEM – science, technology, engineering and math.

Bulking up STEM programs, however, can come with  a hefty price tag. Schools need money for new equipment – SMART boards, computers and more. But they also need funds to modernize their biotechnology labs and resources for teacher training programs and instructional materials.  Additionally, schools are leveraging a historic $4 billion Race to the Top Federal Funding program.  Awards in Race to the Top will go to States that are leading the way with implementing coherent, compelling, and comprehensive education reform around (4) specific areas: 

• Adopting standards and assessments that prepare students to succeed in college and the workplace and to compete in the global economy;
• Building data systems that measure student growth and success, and inform teachers and principals about how they can improve instruction;
• Recruiting, developing, rewarding, and retaining effective teachers and principals, especially where they are needed most; and
• Turning around our lowest-achieving schools.

Race to the Top winners will help trail-blaze effective reforms and provide examples for States and local school districts throughout the country to follow. The good news is that many schools have turned to grants in addition to federal government sponsored programs to meet these rising costs. but also increasingly leveraging foundations focused on education, such as the Helios Education Foundation and Lego Education Smart Schools.

Finding the Needed Funds

Of course, these represent only a few examples of the types of funds that are available. Funded, a monthly newsletter published by Grants Office highlights funds that are available for various programs. A recent issue highlighted trends in grant funding for public sector agencies interested in adopting cloud computing projects. Another highlighted $2.37 Billion in grants for initiatives that benefit homeland security, such as security grants for public transit agencies, fire and emergency response and port security. Grants Office also posts information about grants for a number of sectors, including community development, school IT, public safety and others that could benefit the public.

Money doesn’t come easy, though – there’s work to be done to get those funds. Government agencies and schools are being forced to be creative about how they find  extra money and what they do with it. And once they come up with a creative plan, they need to seek out – and apply for  the grants.

Like the private sector, cash-strapped schools and government agencies are also recognizing the transformational value that comes with an investment in technology and have realized that they cannot rely solely on budget allocations to make the needed changes.  Like the characters in Jerry McGuire, they just need someone to show them the money.

Colleen McMillan, Director of Global Public Sector Solutions

To learn more about our public sector programs, you can follow us on Twitter @VMwareGov and @VMwareEdu or Facebook at VMwarePublicSector