In 2009, Paladin Data Systems moved its planning and permits solution from the Oracle platform to Microsoft SQL Server 2008 to attract small, municipal government customers. To make it easy for these jurisdictions to acquire and use the solution, called SMARTGov Community, Paladin wanted to offer a hosted version. When it heard about the Windows Azure platform, it turned to Microsoft SQL Azure, a cloud-based, relational database service built on Microsoft SQL Server technologies, as a less expensive alternative to building its own hosting infrastructure. Almost immediately, attracted by the easy deployment, low maintenance, and reliability of a Microsoft-hosted solution, Paladin gained its first customer. Looking ahead, it expects increased market share and profit margins because it can provision customers in the cloud at a tenth of what it would have cost to host solutions in-house.
