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The UK government has launched Cloudstore a portal for cloud based IT and at the same time listed the companies which made it onto its preferred supplier list.
The objective is to offer those in public sector government department IT procurement a broader choice and cheaper options and to offer smaller suppliers a chance to sell into the government.
Included in the list were data center sector supplier names including Memset, 5NINES Data Centres Limited, Atos IT Services Ltd, Cap Gemini UK, Claranet, Colt Technology Services, Computacenter, Elastichosts Ltd, EMC Corp, Fujitsu Services, Intechnology plc, Rackspace, Savvis, and Verizon.
Two hundred and fifty seven companies from a total of 300 applicants in total made it onto the list.  
The concept behind G-cloud is that public sector organisations will be able to purchase “off-the-shelf” IT services from CloudStore on a “pay-as-you-go” basis rather than having to develop their own systems.
Announcing the CloudStore Cabinet Office Minister Francis Maude said: The launch of CloudStore is an important milestone in teh Governmet's ICT strategy to deliver savings and an IT system fit for the 21st century. Purchasing services from the Cloudstore will be quicker, easier, cheaper and more transparent for the public sector and suppliers alike."
For this first tranche of the G-Cloud service catalogue, the Government received bids from nearly 300 suppliers, offering a total of around 1,700 services, which are going through a process of assurance and accreditation.
To encourage competition and ensure transparency, service details and pricing information are open to all on CloudStore, allowing buyers to compare services and suppliers and make fully informed purchasing decisions; and contracts should be no longer than a year.
Maude said: "By creating a competitive marketplace, the G-CLoud framework will constantly encourage service providers to improve teh quality and value of the solutions they offer, reducing the cost to taxpayers and suppliers. And it gives SME suppliers of niche products the same opportunities as bigger organisations supplying services. We will only pay for what we use. We will also know from the outset the cost of the product and importantly, the cost of exit from contracts that will be no longer than 12 months." 
Read about how the end of the supplier lock in came about.