The US General Services Administration has gone Google

GSA shares Google’s love for electric cars so they helped launch Electric Vehicle Pilot Program in May. Pictured above: GSA’s administrator Martha N. Johnson behind the wheel of a patriotically painted electric car.

Another day, another big enterprise, education institution or government agency goes Google. Today, it’s the US General Services Administration’s (GSA) turn. The search company has made public on the Google Enterprise blog that in just six months GSA has managed to migrate over 17,000 employees and contractors to Google Apps for Government.

“By moving to the cloud, GSA hopes to serve as a model for other federal agencies”, Google writes. Just the move to Gmail-hosted email will save them $15 million over five years. The switch was gradual as hundreds of early adopters at GSA later provided assistance to their colleagues in making the switch. This is in start contract to the traditional approach involving a large IT department, outside consultancy firms and expensive support and training staff.

GSA teams are now enjoying the Google Chrome for Business browser to run web apps such as Google Docs, Gmail, Calendar, Sites, Google-hosted videos and other custom-built applications running off the Google Apps infrastructure. Last month,  the state of Wyoming transitioned all 10,000 state employees onto Google Apps for Government.