G-Cloud’s Sixth Iteration Goes Live

The sixth iteration of the government’s cloud services procurement framework G-Cloud has now gone live.

Rather than heading to the old storefront known as Cloudstore, buyers are reminded that G-Cloud services are now purchasable via the new Digital Marketplace, which is also set to house the Digital Services Framework later this year.

Some 1453 suppliers now have a place on the cloud procurement framework offering around 11,000 services.

Across both G-Cloud and Digital Services, there are now 1852 suppliers and 20,000 services available, a large proportion of which are offered by SMEs.

G-Cloud 4 has now ended, with buyers able to purchase cloud services from either G-Cloud 5 or 6.

“As usual, we’re continually improving the features and functionalities of the Digital Marketplace for both buyers and suppliers,” claims a blog post on the Marketplace blog.

“We’re currently focused on developing our search capabilities along with the categorisation and filtering of services; these will all work together to help buyers find what they need,” it adds.

Suppliers Must Not Forget Marketing

During December’s THINK Cloud Vendors event, G-Cloud programme director Tony Singleton urged suppliers on the framework to ensure they still do relevant marketing exercises because simply appearing on the framework is not enough to gain business.

Singleton’s thoughts have recently been echoed by former Cloudstore head Mark Craddock who has Tweeted to suppliers urging them to announce how their G-Cloud services can help government and the public sector, rather than just issuing statements saying they have been accepted onto the framework.

If you have any burning questions about the G-Cloud, you may wish to register for next week’s THINK Cloud for Government event in London’s Business Design Centre.

Knowledgeable speakers including Tony Singleton will be there throughout what is sure to be a very informative day.

© 24N.biz