As part of Microsoft Corp.’s ongoing open government efforts aimed at helping government organizations meet goals of transparency, citizen participation and agency collaboration, the company today unveiled its Open Government Data Initiative (OGDI), and will be releasing a collection of software assets that allow government agencies and developers to publish and interact with their data in Windows Azure, the company’s cloud computing platform.

As data becomes both increasingly necessary and readily available in response to demands for transparency, collaboration and participation, methods need to be developed to allow for interaction with that data. To help public sector entities meet these demands, Microsoft’s OGDI provides an Internet-standards-based approach to house existing public government data in Microsoft’s cloud computing platform, called Windows Azure. The approach makes the data accessible in a programmatic manner that uses open, industry-standard protocols and application programming interfaces (APIs). A reference beta site showcases an implementation of a data service in Windows Azure, using a sample of publicly available government data.

Typically, federal, state and local government data is available via download from government Web sites, which requires citizen developers to host and maintain the data themselves. Through OGDI, Microsoft is highlighting the importance of programmatic access to government data (versus downloading the data).