Strengthening inter-communal cooperation and reduction of cost by application sharing (ICAS)
A good possibility to reduce costs is to strengthen the inter-communal cooperation by practicing application sharing.
Application sharing is one of the future technologies, which becomes possible by broadband access. Large concerns such as Microsoft or Google are going to offer new applications only via the internet (web 2.0). Without sufficient broadband transfer rates the use of these technologies is not possible.
Application sharing can appear in different ways. In the following chapters we will show how this can be carried into execution. But first there is an overview about the project 2.
Achievements
Local administrations were increasingly forced to reduce their resources and to look for possible cuts, concerning the carrying out of their tasks. At the same time they were confronted with the necessity to develop a stronger orientation towards services and to guaranty citizens, particularly in rural areas, where the distance to council offices is a special problem, a contemporary comfort regarding the use of their offers. Of particular importance is the use of information and communication technologies. The downside of the problem was the fact that especially the smaller local authorities in rural areas did not have the financial possibilities and the critical mass to finance expensive expert systems for the use in their fields of activities.
It was possible for local authorities to buy such systems jointly by using the so-called application sharing. Thus the purchase costs as well as the costs for the maintenance and use of the system could be reduced drastically. By increasing complexity of such expert systems and the growing quantity of data, the availability of economical broadband connection between local authorities and their connected council offices was an important condition for the implementation of such systems.
Objectives
- Improvement of the possibilities of co-operation and reduction of ICT costs of local authorities in rural areas;
- Reduction of costs by the division of labour concerning tests of new possibilities in the field of application sharing;
- Development of concepts and components for application sharing between county and municipalities;
- Development of application sharing and inter-communal e-based services between local authorities;
- Implementation of application sharing models between local authorities;
- Test installations of selected concepts in some regions and transfer of experiences to other regions;
- Strengthening of the concept of activities of users in the participating regions;
- Joint implementation of technical solutions in cooperation of different project partners;