Longhaus research highlights that 45% of Australia’s large to medium enterprises see cloud computing as a priority in 2008. And while only 13% of these firms have adopted some form of as-a-service offering from the network, 35% of Australia’s medium to large organisations have indicated that they would be moving in this direction in the next 12 – 24 months. In the last 12 months IBM have opened 13 cloud computing centres that they are using to work with their clients in understanding what it means to take advantage of cloud computing. In other market movements, in April Microsoft announced that their online services, the Microsoft Live services, would operate from a cloud computing centre in Singapore. This was followed in November with the launch of the Azure Services platform. Yet a notable absence from this new world of utility computing is the public sector; until now…. The Brisbane ICT Hypothetical Series is a joint initiative between Longhaus, and Invest Brisbane. The series provides a platform to explore those issues facing industries that are both current and generating a mixture of both excitement and confusion. The series brings together some of the best and brightest leaders in ICT to examine the implications of cutting-edge topics in a hypothetical setting. Particular to government some of the key issues and concepts uncovered through the panel included an Australian Patriot Act for international data protection and access, a private government cloud, or cloud.gov.au, and licencingandregistrationforce.com. Panellists: Alan Chapman, Queensland Government Chief Information Officer; Greg Stone, Chief Technology Officer Microsoft Australia; Paul Summergreene, Former CIO Queensland Transport and Queensland Health; Id Cuda, ICT Partnerships Manager Brisbane City Council; Dr Renato Iannella, Principal Scientist National ICT Australia; and Vincent Kennedy, Chief Technology Officer, Nextep Broadband and Assistant General Manager, Network Applications, NEC Australia.