G-Cloud App Store set for mid-Feb launch?

The Government Cloud App Store may launch a couple of weeks ahead of schedule, in mid-February, not the March deadline originally laid down in last October's Strategic Implementation Plan.

That at least is the impression the man in charge of the 'Catalogue Network' - to give the Store its official Whitehall name - gave delegates to this week's Cloud Expo Europe in London Olympia.

"We are looking at a mid-Feb launch now," Mark O'Neill, Proposition Director for Innovation and Strategy in the Government Digital Service told attendees at his Thursday keynote.

The promise is especially interesting as O'Neill pointed out that ICT vendor applications for the G-Cloud framework has now hit 1,600 - the "largest we've ever received for a framework," he said. "This was a much bigger response than we ever expected."

"Many of those applying are SMEs, which is particularly welcome," he added.