Apps.gov

On the website 4 sections (business apps, cloud IT services, productivity apps and social media apps) are available according to which 66 different application classes are sorted. In each class several products can be offered at choice. For example, officials will be able to select from 35 CRM systems of development of Salesforce or 17 BI systems of the same SalesForce. ERP is available only one - SMARTopics. Office tools offered the state organizations are limited to the G Suite applications (before Google Apps). Also on the portal there is a possibility of the choice of free social web services, such as Flickr, Wordpress or Youtube.

4 classes of systems in the section of cloud IT services as it is reported on the website, will become available only after a while. It development tools, virtual machines, web hostings and network attached storages. All other 62 classes of web applications are open already now, however, not in all from them there is a filling. For example, in the section of OS there is no system yet.

Quotes

"Why the government should pay for creation and use of infrastructure if the same services can be available absolutely free of charge? – Vivek Kundra speaks. - The federal government should treat it with bigger foresight".

Kundra also noted that it is going to lower barriers to federal agencies on application of cloud applicaions, but at the same time to consider security concerns and privacy protections which can arise thereof a step, Reuters reports.

"We understand that all this [transition to the cloud systems] will not happen instantly. It is very important to have access to the last innovative technologies, our organizations lag behind new trends and by that in their work unnecessary restrictions appear", - Kundra told.

According to him, broad use of cloud computing in state bodies will allow them "perform the work cheaper, quicker and, finally, it is more reliable". "The same as the water supply system or electricity, cloud computing allow users to consume only necessary, without thinking of resources necessary for this purpose and to pay only for what they really apply in work", - the head of information technologies of the White House emphasized.

History

2009: Agreement with Google

In September, 2009 the Internet giant Google reached the agreement with the U.S. Government under the terms of which, the company in 2010 will create a special set of the distributed cloud services for Apps.gov working for the benefit of the government. Analysts say that for the company the new project almost for certain will be unprofitable from the economic point of view, but unambiguously profitable in terms of image in the opinion of business users.

It is known that Apps.gov will be based on a basis of the on-line office Google Apps set including applications for work with office documents, e-mail and contact lists. Also as well as Google Apps, Apps.gov will work on SaaS technology when the user pays not for the program as such, and for a possibility of its use. As a rule, such services are paid once a year.

Google does not provide many data on the government contract, it is known only that the government option of development will be it will be placed independently from the general Google Apps and also will receive a number of new integration tools with Microsoft SharePoint and IBM Lotus. In usual conditions these solutions compete among themselves and each producer tries to emphasize "independence", but the exception was made now.

"The data provided within this project will work for the benefit of federal, regional and local self-government institutions. The Apps.gov service will be placed on separate servers, in the isolated environment that makes sense, considering that volume of the closed data with which these departments work", - Matt Glotsbakh, the director of Google Enterprise product management says.

According to him, for the government transition to cloud computing is not only and not just a craze, but also one of the steps directed to economy of the state budget. Earlier many departments used the offline software, buying the fixed sets of licenses that in terms of use was not effective and expensive as cloud services work by the principle "pay only for what you use", economy in scales of several departments should be essential.

In addition to implementation of "cloud office" Vivek Kundra, the Federal CIO at Barack Obama, soon intends to provide also other initiatives directed to cost reduction. First of all they will be connected with use of open programs. Google says that Mr. Kunda is not bad familiar with their developments. So, still being the Federal technical director of the District of Columbia in June, 2008 it signed with Google the contract for the amount more than 500,000 dollars on implementation of Google Apps on desktops of 38,000 government employees of the district.

Now much more serious prospects as today's IT systems of the U.S. Government integrate in themselves at least 10,000 autonomous subsystems are offered Google, in each of which there are office workers. Glotsbakh tells that now in many American municipal authorities already use Google Apps, though recognizes that most of users still sit on Outlook/Word/Excel.

Along with signing of the contract, Google also started the help website Public Sector where the materials facilitating implementation of cloud solutions for local and federal authorities (http://www.google.com/publicsector/) will be published.