The General Services Administration (GSA) is seeking to move to the cloud computing model as part of the federal government’s plan to modernize its technology infrastructure. Google, Microsoft and IBM have an important deadline coming up in their heated war for these cloud computing contracts.
On July 30, the GSA invited software makers to submit their bids to become the federal agency’s E-mail and collaboration application provider. The deadline to submit bids is Sept. 30.
The GSA, which oversees government procurement and manages federal property in the U.S., currently uses IBM’s Lotus Notes suite of E-mail and document applications for its 15,000 employees. Those apps reside locally on the GSA’s servers and its users’ computers.
Now, the GSA is looking to procure applications that vendors such as Google, Microsoft and IBM provision over the Web from remote data centers. Vendors host the data; users access the apps through Web browsers. Companies pay a baseline price of $3 to $5 per user, per month for cloud e-mail services from these three vendors.
For more, read the eWeek article Google, Microsoft, IBM Vie for GSA Cloud Contract.