The city decided to go with Google.

"Basically, there's a Microsoft or a Google cloud. They were both very, very good products. It was a tough decision," said Stern, who noted that the selection committee included city IT staffers as well as a budget official, the county CIO, and a tech representative from a local university.

"The reason that we went with Google at the end of the day was a matter of pricing, a matter of security, capacity and a matter of innovation that is promised for the future," Stern said. "Everyone, internal and external folks, all had the same feeling at the end of the day about going with Google."

Stern noted that he was impressed with Google's cloud security, as well as with its experience in dealing with the requirements of the Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA), which sets standards for information security.

Google and Microsoft have been increasingly competitive, with both companies vying to move their cloud-based applications into the enterprise . Olds said this competition can only help organizations that are looking to get good deals.

"Now that Microsoft has a cloud offering, we're going to be seeing them locking horns directly with Google much more often," Olds said. "This is a good thing for users, since it forces both companies — along with the smaller players — to take their game to a higher level in terms of service quality."

One of the pieces of good news for Pittsburgh is the amount of money it will save. By migrating its email to Google's cloud, Stern said the city will see its licensing costs drop from $200,000 a year to $160,000.

The city will also save money on personnel costs. Stern pointed out that the two administrators who manage the Exchange system will see their email duties cut by 60% , freeing them up to spend more time on other IT tasks.

"Overall savings, between staffing and real dollar figures, we'll save well over $100,000 a year," said Pittsburgh's CIO. He was quick to add that the decision was not all about money. It was also about security, added versatility and efficiency.

For instance, the city limits the amount of storage space users have for their email to between 50MB and 100MB for the average user. In the cloud, each user will have 25GB of storage capacity.

Stern said he got advice from officials in other state and local governments who have recently switched to Google Apps. He contacted administrators for the cities of Orlando and Des Moines and the state of Wyoming to learn about their migrations and day-to-day experiences.

"They felt comfortable and safe, and at the end of the day, we feel comfortable and safe," Stern said. "This information must be protected. We had to feel really comfortable about this. I hold all this data, all these emails. And by giving it to someone else, I lose control. I feel comfortable with the way it's being secured."

Source: ComputerWorld