As more public sector government agencies examine the cloud to cut budgets, whether they are in the U.S. and mandated to do so or are simply interested in checking out their options, IT companies serving the public sector are adapting to the changing technology use case. A recent example of this is Infor, a business application software company that has deployed its Infor Public Sector Suite into more than 350 public organizations around the globe. Infor has announced a cloud services version of the software suite.

Infor is relying on cut or shrinking budgets and an interest in doing things a different and more cost-effective way to bring on new customers—or presumably to keep existing customers that are now taking a look at the cloud in an effort to simplify IT and software costs. According to Infor, the cloud version of Public Sector Suite enables state and local governments to get the same features and functions found in the on-premise version as a cloud service to "significantly reduce the cost of maintaining the software."

"Infor is helping public agencies prepare for the future by encouraging cloud-based deployment, which provides greater flexibility in terms of implementation and future growth, as well as a lower total cost of ownership," said Kevin Curry, senior vice president for public sector at Infor, in a prepared statement. "As local and city government budgets continue to tighten, delivering our public sector products in the cloud is essential to help customers face their current economic challenges."

The company doesn't seem to have plans to put an end to its on-premise version of the suite, which comes as no surprise. One of the main off-shoot benefits to cloud that software developers like to talk about is giving customers a choice between how they deploy and consume software. Many government agencies will still want to have on-premise solutions, but a growing number are turning to the cloud. When they're given a choice, a company like Infor has a greater chance of holding on to or gaining new business.