I was interested to read that Westminster City Council is planning to be infrastructure-free by 2015, by outsourcing all IT services.
It's refreshing to find an organisation that's prepared to think that far ahead. Most directors today seem to be obsessed with ninety-day projects. That might be fine for new systems and upgrades. But radical changes to the underpinning legacy infrastructure take a very long time.
You need a powerful vision to get away with that. And it's good to see a vision that aims to go all the way.
Taking out infrastructure is a form of de-perimeterisation. It's about moving to "the cloud". That requires a collaboration-oriented architecture, to ensure that services can fully exploit the potential of operating outside the confines of the corporate infrastructure.
I recall that Westminster were early pioneers of wireless services, not just to provide facilities for visitors, but also as a vehicle for transforming service delivery. Infrastructure changes are a powerful vehicle for driving through process change
It's refreshing also to read that they are aiming for value for money, rather than cost cutting. That's a much smarter approach. When it comes to IT, the cheapest service is usually the worst value. I shall watch their progress with interest.
