G-Cloud tender extended again

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The deadline to submit a tender for the Government’s £60 million G-Cloud has been extended for the second time today.

This means companies wanting to be involved in the project now have until 3pm on 19th December to get their proposals in.

The first deadline was pushed back from 23 November to 5 December, following confusion from applicants and the need for more questions to be answered.

The Government has dubbed this latest extension “the 12 days of G-Cloud” over Twitter, with the Cabinet Office saying it was lengthened “due to popular demand.”

A statement from the department said it had already received 532 “expressions of interest” since the tender was announced in October - which Chris Chant, director of the G-Cloud, told Cloud Pro was 10 times what they had expected - and believed G-Cloud was one of the most “SME friendly frameworks to date.”

This sticks with the overall Government strategy of encouraging more small and medium sized businesses to enter the public sector procurement progress, which has previously been dominated by large IT vendors.

“SMEs have been considered at every point possible and the excellent response shows it’s the right way to go – with hundreds of suppliers registering interest, many of them SMEs,” said Stephen Allott, the crown representative for SMEs.

“This is the most innovative framework I’ve seen since working at the Cabinet Office… Things are really starting to change.”

For further coverage of cloud computing visit our sister site Cloud Pro.

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