Huddle launches government-friendly collaboration software

Project management and collaboration firm Huddle has revealed that the UK government plans to use its software for all its data-sharing needs.

Huddle will now be hosted in a private cloud by FCO Services, part of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

Huddle chief executive Alastair Mitchell told V3 that the firm's project management and file sharing software had seen increasing take-up in the public sector over the past few years, but that the rollout had hit barriers as the public sector is not allowed to share certain types of data over a public cloud.

According to Huddle's figures, more than 60 per cent of central government departments, including Defra and the Cabinet Office, already use the public version of Huddle for collaboration.

"Huddle has seen strong use in government as it takes part in a lot of collaborative activity. It's a lot easier than using emails to communicate between departments," said Mitchell.

"But around 50 per cent of government work could not be posted on Huddle's public cloud, and the government wanted to connect its Government Secure Network to Huddle in a highly secure environment."

The government's private cloud version of Huddle is known as Huddle IL3, referring to the restricted content the public sector shares, which includes policy that is about to become law, or data that contains personal information.

Mitchell said that the government does not plan to offer Huddle training to staff.

"Lots of users are already using the public version, and Huddle doesn't require any user training anyway," he said.

Mitchell added that having UK datacentres makes Huddle's public cloud particularly popular among UK public sector organisations, as much of the sector cannot use Microsoft Office 365 or Salesforce "because of the legalities of using foreign datacentres".