NARA to adopt Google Apps for Government
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Federal agencies' move to the cloud for office suites continues, as Google and Microsoft battle for territory.
The National Archives and Records Administration has awarded Unisys Corp. a contract to move 4,500 employees to Google Apps for Government.
The deal is potentially worth $7.2 million and is the latest in a string of contracts the company has won in the last two years to help move government agencies to Google’s cloud-based suite of office and productivity tools. The contract also represents a win for Google in its ongoing battle with Microsoft to move government agencies’ office apps to the cloud.
In 2010, Unisys moved 17,000 General Services Administration staffers to Google Apps, making GSA the first agency to move all of its employees to the cloud.
Since then, 5,000 employees at the Energy Department’s Idaho National Lab and 25,000 employees at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have moved to the Google cloud-based office application suite. In May, the Interior Department announced it would move to Google Apps for Government in a contract award to Onix Networking Corp.
But Microsoft also has won a healthy stake in the government market for its cloud-based Microsoft Office 365 suite. In June, the Federal Aviation Administration awarded Computer Sciences Corp. a $91 million contract to move 60,000 of its own employees and 20,000 employees at the Transportation Department to a cloud platform based on Office 365, which includes messaging, calendaring, IMs and Web conferencing, Microsoft reported.
That followed moves to Microsoft Office 365 by the Agriculture Department, the states of California, Nebraska and Minnesota; and the cities of New York and San Francisco.
Both Google Apps for Government and Microsoft 365 promise to bring down the government's costs for maintaining and administrating office applications. Both products promise more robust tools for helping staff more easily share documents and participate in workgroups.
Unisys said its contract with NARA has a $2.8 million base year and four one-year options. “PV” Puvvada, Unisys’s group vice president of civilian agencies, said the company would help NARA “cut costs and become more efficient as its employees perform their important and high-profile mission.”
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