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Story URL: http://www.silicon.com/publicsector/0,3800010403,39264804,00.htm

Leeds Council puts faith in Microsoft
To cut costs and SOA much more...

By Tim Ferguson

Published: Monday 28 July 2008

Leeds City Council (LCC) is hoping to save money and develop new public services through a long term agreement with Microsoft.

The strategic IT partnership is a major part of the council's transformation project and is aimed at achieving better integration of business applications and improved collaboration across the organisation.

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Speaking to silicon.com, LCC's head of IT, Dylan Roberts, said the council wants its IT to be more agile and better aligned with the business objectives.

He said this is important as local government is increasingly focusing on improving services for citizens rather than merely achieving financial targets.

The work the council plans to undertake with Microsoft will cost an estimated £15m over five years as it refreshes and upgrades its network.

Roberts stressed the importance of the Microsoft deal. He said: "The point is we're committing to the [Microsoft technology] stack. Interoperability was a key driver for us. Microsoft is becoming significantly more interoperable as a company."

The initial work will see LCC use Microsoft Exchange and Office Communication Server to integrate email, instant messenger and voice communications.

Roberts said: "We recognised that we needed good collaboration tools."

There are also plans for the council to use Microsoft's service oriented architecture (SOA) platform to develop future applications.

The agreement is already delivering benefits with a pilot project underway in the Children's Services department around secure joint working on document and case management files.

Microsoft will also act as a consultancy with software architects working with the council to maximise the benefits of the Microsoft technology.

There will be improvements around information and knowledge management through the use of business intelligence and electronic document records management.

But LCC is not planning to roll out Microsoft's Vista operating system quite yet. Roberts said: "I wouldn't roll out Vista right now. We've got other fish to fry."