
Los Angeles adopts Google e-mail system for 30,000 city employees - mjfern
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2009/10/city-council-votes-to-adopt-google-email-system-for-30000-city-employees.html
======
staunch
My first reaction was "WTF". But really it does make a ton of sense. I'll bet
this deal, more than any other, scares the crap out of Balmer. If Google can
get big organizations living inside the browser they're going to win the whole
game.

~~~
jonknee
Who said anything about living in the browser? Google provides my email
service too and I hardly ever use the web interface.

~~~
staunch
Presumably this is a gateway drug for Google Docs.

~~~
riffer
The professionally acceptable term is "candy"

------
martin
I was on site at one of my clients, a top investment bank, and was surprised
to see the guy I was visiting was using Google Apps for his work email. Turns
out they were piloting it as a potential replacement for Lotus Notes (yikes).
I don't think they actually decided to go with it, but the fact that a big
firm would even consider a hosted solution for something like email --
especially in the financial sector, where there's constant obsession over
security and regulatory compliance -- rocked my world a bit.

------
noelchurchill
What is the current cost of LAs email system? How much is LA supposed to save
by switching? How long are the terms of the deal?

~~~
raintrees
And what happens if Google loses interest in this product?

<Edit> My first line comes across as snarky, and I apologize.

But it still concerns me about relying on on-line services when I have read so
many articles about one company or another either losing information, selling
the product to someone else who has a different agenda, or deciding to abandon
a product (among other actions).

~~~
elblanco
This is a good point. As much as I like google, I've been bitten by the
"google discontinues service xyz" problem a couple times in the past.

~~~
jonknee
Not services that you had a 5 year SLA agreement for.

------
fjabre
I live in LA and this is the best use of tax money I've seen in a while =)

------
josefresco
$241 per account, that's some expensive email.

~~~
maukdaddy
Not compared to the cost of exchange admins, project managers, licenses,
production servers, QA servers, test servers, power, cooling, load balancers,
web servers for OWA, etc.

~~~
peregrine
spam filters....

------
daveinla
So gmail will let the city of LA do litigation holds on e-mail, right?!??

