Google Apps for Government

Google has been signing up a lot of Google Apps for Government customers over the last year, including Colorado and the US Naval Academy, and today The Boston Globe reports that Boston is soon making the switch from Microsoft to a Google Apps environment for city employees.

As noted in the report, Boston was previously relying on Microsoft’s Exchange for much of its tasks and making the switch to Google will save the city around $280,000 a year:

It’s not just the gee whiz factor: It’s also a matter of money. It will cost Boston around $800,000 to move over to Gmail, Google Docs for word processing, and Google’s cloud service for storing documents. But by dropping some Microsoft products, the city government will save at least $280,000 a year.

Microsoft responded to the decision in a statement to the Boston Globe, claiming, “Google’s investments in these areas are inadequate, and they lack the proper protections most organizations require.”
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Google already announced some big new enterprise partners adopting Google Apps this year, despite Microsoft launching its “Googlighting” smear campaign to promote its Office 365 alternative. In January, it signed its biggest deal with a single company by transitioning roughly 110,000 employees across 26 countries from Spanish bank BBVA to Google Apps. For governments, Colorado recently adopted the Google Apps for Government platform, and today Google announced on the Official Enterprise Blog that Edmonton has become the first major Canadian city to make the switch:

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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.

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