September 15, 2009 By Steve Towns, Editor
Google will launch a government-specific version of its popular cloud computing offerings, the company said Tuesday, Sept. 15. The Google announcement came just hours after federal government officials unveiled Apps.gov, a Web-based storefront designed to let federal agencies easily acquire cloud computing applications.
The Google government cloud will offer a version of the commercial Google Apps suite -- which includes hosted e-mail, word processing, collaboration and Web site creation services -- that's tailored to meet specific public-sector requirements. The company plans to launch the new offering in 2010, and it will be available to federal, state and local government agencies.
"One of the things that [federal CIO Vivek] Kundra said this morning during the announcement of Apps.gov was that industry will need to step up and help move the government's cloud computing initiative forward," said Matthew Glotzbach, product management director of Google Enterprise. "So we're happy to rise to that challenge."
He said Google's government cloud would comply with rules spelled out in the Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA), as well as other public-sector privacy and security policies. Unlike the company's commercial offerings -- which are hosted on infrastructure worldwide -- the government cloud will rely on Google facilities and equipment located only in the United States.
"We're very excited to announce this, and we will continue to play a leadership role as it relates to cloud computing," Glotzbach said. The company has not yet decided on pricing for the new services, he said.
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