Microsoft Government Customer Solution Case Study Social Network Uses Cloud Computing to Connect Citizens with Elected Officials “Storage, scalability, uptime SLAs, and an easy way to Overview Country or Region: United States migrate our existing codebase were all major factors in Industry: State and local government choosing the Windows Azure suite of cloud services.” Customer Profile Jason Kiesel, Founder and Chief Architect, FreedomSpeaks Los Angeles, California–based FreedomSpeaks.com is a social network dedicated to facilitating political change. Founded in 2006, FreedomSpeaks is one of the first political The company uses technology to help citizens express concerns and opinions to social networks in the United States. The organization advocates publicly elected officials. open communication and transparency between elected officials Business Situation and their constituents, and uses technology to support this FreedomSpeaks acquired a new product endeavor. In addition to its political activism website, the called CitySourced, and needed to scale quickly without increasing expenses or company acquired a mobile product called CitySourced that staff resources. allows citizens to send comments and concerns directly to local Solution governmental agencies via smartphone devices. To support this FreedomSpeaks migrated its existing offering, FreedomSpeaks needed to migrate its existing internal computational tasks and the CitySourced product to the cloud-based infrastructure to an on-demand, internet-based—or Windows Azure technology platform. platform. After evaluating competing Benefits cloud-based offerings from Amazon and Rackspace, Boosted innovation FreedomSpeaks selected the Windows Azure technology Improved reliability Increased scalability platform for its cost-effectiveness, easy integration with the Maximized existing resources company’s existing infrastructure, and scalability.
Microsoft Government Customer Solution Case Study Social Network Uses Cloud Computing to Connect Citizens with Elected Officials Overview Country or Region: United States Industry: State and local government Customer Profile Los Angeles, California–based FreedomSpeaks.com is a social network dedicated to facilitating political change. The company uses technology to help citizens express concerns and opinions to publicly elected officials. Business Situation FreedomSpeaks acquired a new product called CitySourced, and needed to scale quickly without increasing expenses or staff resources. Solution FreedomSpeaks migrated its existing internal computational tasks and the CitySourced product to the cloud-based Windows Azure technology platform. Benefits Boosted innovation Improved reliability Increased scalability Maximized existing resources “Storage, scalability, uptime SLAs, and an easy way to migrate our existing codebase were all major factors in choosing the Windows Azure suite of cloud services.” Jason Kiesel, Founder and Chief Architect, FreedomSpeaks Founded in 2006, FreedomSpeaks is one of the first political social networks in the United States. The organization advocates open communication and transparency between elected officials and their constituents, and uses technology to support this endeavor. In addition to its political activism website, the company acquired a mobile product called CitySourced that allows citizens to send comments and concerns directly to local governmental agencies via smartphone devices. To support this offering, FreedomSpeaks needed to migrate its existing infrastructure to an on-demand, internet-based—or platform. After evaluating competing cloud-based offerings from Amazon and Rackspace, FreedomSpeaks selected the Windows Azure technology platform for its cost-effectiveness, easy integration with the company’s existing infrastructure, and scalability.
FreedomSpeaks_CS.docx