Matthew Cornelius, Executive Director of the Alliance for Digital Innovation

Several lobbying groups representing the cloud computing industry, including Amazon and Google, have also encouraged federal officials to grant faster approvals for the services to be adopted in light of the virus or to provide more funding for federal employees to work from home.

Matthew Cornelius, a former federal official who leads the Alliance for Digital Innovation, which represents Amazon and Salesforce, said rapid spread of telework in the federal government validated the industry’s argument that agencies should be able to more quickly use their products.

He hopes that after the immediate shock of the virus passes, he said, the government and industry will look at lessons in how the government can increasingly do work in the cloud.

“I think this is a tremendous opportunity,” he said.

– How Tech’s Lobbyists Are Using the Pandemic to Make Gains, New York Times (Apr. 3, 2020)