Cloud computing is a historically significant trend in the development of information technology and applications. The cloud concept and the corresponding series of changes in technology, business, application, and service models are inevitable results of such developments in the information industry. In recent years, governments and major IT companies have introduced new IT strategies based on cloud computing, such as innovative platforms, services, and applications. More and more data and applications are migrating into the cloud, and the development of cloud computing is in full swing (Shen & Zhang, 2013).
TopCompared with the previous “E-government 1.0”, “E-government 2.0” is a new generation of e-government platform. After 20 years of development, the traditional e-government has some brilliant achievements: government website systems for central, local and various industries have been generally established; the construction of a basic information base has been steadily moving forward, and a series of “golden projects” have been promoting the informatization of the core business of government, creating significant economic and social benefits. The informatization of the government stimulates the informatization of the society as a whole, and therefore has significant influence on the modernization of China’s economic system – industrial, organizational and social structures.
However, traditional government platforms have major problems in overall planning, coordinated sharing, independent innovation, unified planning and standards so on. Examples are the island data centers established for each committee, office, department and bureau of the government, which makes it difficult to share, coordinate and integrate data because of fragmentation. This prevents efficient planning, design, construction, application and management according to unified business requirements, data format, technologies and evaluation standards. This system fails to provide everyday users with intelligent on-demand services, so they often have to search in a vast sea of data.
With the vigorous development of cloud computing and mobile Internet, the information world is soon to enter an era of big data, and China is also to usher in the era of E-government 2.0. In order to seize the historic opportunity and achieve leapfrog development, China needs to accurately grasp the essence and nature of information industry’s development, and learn from the international industrial giants’ strategy of the three-tier framework, namely, “Cloud + Terminal + App Store”, so as to formulate cloud strategies based on China’s national characteristics.
In the international community, public cloud platforms are mainly invested and built by Microsoft and other social and/or private enterprises, providing services to users worldwide. But in China, the government holds the most credible power of action rather than any private enterprises, and therefore China’s cloud platforms must be built, managed and operated with more or less involvement of the government. The Chinese government is undeniably the single dominating player in the entire industry.
To develop a Chinese model of cloud computing, there are two basic characteristics, namely, “independence and self-control” and “opening up and win-win”. China should actively track and learn from foreign cutting-edge technologies and state-of-art operation models, while bearing in mind the reality of China. Meanwhile, China can take advantage of government policies, markets and talents to guide the forward-looking and independent innovation of cloud computing.