Google Apps for Government seeing UK interest

IT leaders still say there are details to be ironed out

Google has said it is seeing tremendous interest from the UK government in its web-based Google Apps because of the focus on cost cutting in the public sector.

Google Apps is a totally web-based set of tools for businesses.

Google has launched a version of the offering for the public sector in the US, called Google Apps for Government, which it said is being used by various bodies in 49 of the 50 states, and is now seeing interest in the software from the UK government.

"We are seeing tremendous interest from the UK government in this technology," said Robert Whiteside, head of enterprise at Google UK.

"If you can imagine the challenges the government is facing and the budget constraints at the moment, they are required to make some tough decisions. And if you have the option to reduce frontline services or to move some of your technology to a lower-cost platform, then this is a very attractive proposition."

He added that the UK government still needs to provide Google with more detail on its ability to move to cloud computing.

"We see tremendous grassroots interest to move to this platform. The government is raising lots of questions, but it has yet to clarify its position on this technology."

Google said it can provide assurances that data will be held in a way that satisfies EU data protection laws, but data protection compliance remains a worry for IT leaders in the public sector.

David Wilde, chief information officer at Westminster City Council, agreed that there is interest in Google Apps for Government, but said there are still ongoing questions about data storage.

"Where [is the data] hosted? How can we assure ourselves [that we comply] with various bits of legislation? We are comfortable with processing data inside the European Economic Area (EEA), but processing data outside the EEA, we're not at all comfortable with. Those issues are still out there," he said.

He added that the driver for government to move to Google Apps is the cost, but said that the costs quoted by cloud software vendors do not tell the whole story.

"If you look at setting up a Virtual Desktop Environment, Google Apps would form part of that, but you have to build in all the other costs on top and determine what the true total cost of ownership of that is," said Wilde.

"When you start looking at that, the numbers start stacking up; it's not as simple as saying it only costs £7 per user to use Google Apps or Microsoft Azure, there's more to it than that."