Governments Gone Google

It's not often in life that we can get more for less. But that's just what cloud computing is offering cash-strapped governments across the country: an opportunity to upgrade their dated infrastructure to state of the art, and save money in the process.

That was the appeal of Google Apps to Conrad Cross, the CIO for the City of Orlando. Conrad is leading the migration of all 3,000 city employees from Lotus Notes/Domino to Google Apps, including the Police and Fire departments. Facing software license renewals, major upgrade costs, and a 12% reduction in staff, it was the right time for the City to consider other options. For half the cost of the alternative, Orlando is jumping onto Google's innovation curve and freeing up IT resources to focus on more important efforts. "The time was right," said Cross. "I'm delivering a better service with less resources, and that gets me ahead of the game." Just down Interstate-95, the 11th largest school district in the US, Palm Beach County, is also moving its more than 200,000 students, staff and other users to Apps.

The New Mexico Attorney General’s Office has a similar story. Its 120 attorneys and 200 full-time employees use Google Apps for email, archiving, and document management. After moving from Microsoft Exchange to Google Apps, the employees no longer need to delete mail or worry about backing up sensitive information. The data's instantly available whenever they want it and they're more productive.

Fast growing cities like Canton, Georgia are also benefiting from the cloud. Strained by escalating spam and endless server maintenance, Camille Wehs, the city's only IT staffer, moved all 165 employees to Apps. With additional reliability, disaster recovery, flexibility and anywhere access to information, she sleeps better for it.

Most recently, the Los Angeles City Council voted unanimously to move its 30,000 employees to Apps. If you're also interested in getting more for less, please join us for a live webcast this Thursday featuring James Ferreira, CIO for the New Mexico State Attorney General’s Office.

Join us for this LIVE Event on:
Thursday, November 12, 2009
2:00 PM ET / 11:00 AM PT / 7:00 PM GMT

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Posted by Michael Lock, Director, Americas Sales & Operations, Google Enterprise