Cloud for Europe: The Experience of a Tenderer

In 2013, in the context of the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7), the European Commission promoted a major initiative addressing cloud computing and the public sector, named Cloud-for-Europe (C4E), for the creation of a digital single market of IT services in the cloud. That initiative pushes public sector organizations from Member States for preparing themselves in procuring secure, cost-effective, reliable and trustworthy cloud services. C4E has adopted the Pre-Commercial Procurement (PCP) instrument for involving not only public sector entities but also IT, Telcos, and SMEs in providing innovative cloud-based solutions that best fit public sector's needs. In this paper, after presenting a brief overview of C4E initiative and the current European scenario for public cloud services and cloud projects, we discuss the lessons learned on the relevance of achieving cross-border interoperability between public cloud computing services, deriving from our successful participation at the first PCP phase as tenderers.