Cities Moving from Microsoft Office to Google Apps

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The Los Angeles City Council voted unanimously earlier this week to outsource its e-mail system to Google Inc., according to an article in the Los Angeles Times. The contract is worth $7.25 million and covers 30,000 employees.

In June, Washington, D.C. made a similar decision, signing a contract worth almost $500,000 for its 38,000 municipal employees to use Google's e-mail, spreadsheet and word- processing programs, giving them an Internet-based alternative to Microsoft Corp.'s Office software, installed on computers, according to Bloomberg.

Interestingly, the chief technical officer responsible for the decision was Vivek Kundras. The White House recently decided to migrate its website from proprietary software to Drupal.

Los Angeles plans to complete implementation of the Google system by June and will begin with a pilot period during which a limited number of employees will test the system, the Times said. City law enforcement agencies including the Los Angeles Police Department will migrate to the new system once they are satisfied with the security and functioning of the system.

Los Angeles worked on the decision for nearly a year, where Google competed with other software vendors, including Microsoft. "Parties on all sides believe that if smaller cities see Los Angeles successfully transition to Google's cloud system, they may be more likely to follow suit," the Times said.

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called out an important trend: cities trialing cloud productivity unlocked real savings and new ways to collaborate. Those early experiments also surfaced practical limits that matter today. Los Angeles later ran into law‑enforcement security and e‑discovery issues that constrained the rollout for police and related units. Wired: Google Apps Not Cutting It for LA's Finest Consumer Watchdog: Google Apps Hasn't Met LAPD's Security Requirements

Washington, D.C. (Vivek Kundra’s program) shows a common pattern: use cloud services for intranet and collaboration while keeping some on‑prem systems for workloads that need stricter controls or user acceptance testing. That hybrid approach reduces risk and buys time for policy, technical, and procurement work. CIO: How Vivek Kundra fought government waste one Google App at a time

Practical checklist for municipal IT teams before a mass migration:

  • Map and classify sensitive data (CJIS, CUI, PHI) and decide which workloads must remain in a hardened enclave. See the FBI CJIS security requirements for law‑enforcement data. FBI CJIS Security Policy (PDF)
  • Run representative pilots that include legal, records, and public‑safety users; validate e‑discovery, retention, and device posture and keep a hybrid fallback if tests fail. Consumer Watchdog/Wired reporting on LA rollout issues
  • Lock procurement and exit terms: exportable formats, SLAs, breach notifications, transition assistance, and third‑party attestations (SOC/FedRAMP). Cloud vendors now document government controls — verify scope for your needs. Google Workspace — Government solutions

These steps preserve the collaboration gains celebrates while protecting critical legal and public‑safety responsibilities.

Member Avatar for ShadyTyrant
ShadyTyrant 2 Junior Poster

Its nice to see that government organizations are staying on top of the times.

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