IBM’s Lotus Notes has been around a long time now, but many organisations have become tired of it, finding it cumbersome and inflexible; not to mention costly.
Many of these organisations are often government departments. I’m not sure if the US Department of the Interior is one of them, but whether it is or not is no longer a problem. The government body has decided to switch to a cloud-based system – Google Apps for Government.
Interestingly, the department had considered moving to Microsoft’s Office 365 but decided against it, preferring what Google had to offer instead.
The contract with Google is said to be seven years, and will be worth about $35 million. Switching will also save in the region of $500 million by 2020.
When asked whether the department used Lotus Notes or some other system, the authorities refused to answer.
Switching to Google is also something of a bitter pill to swallow for Microsoft as the latter has been working with the Department of Interior on a number of projects. A spokesperson for Microsoft told computerworlduk.com: “Although we are disappointed by this award, we will engage with our partners and DOI to review and understand the reasons for this decision.”
This particular statement, I think, is something of an understatement by Microsoft. The software giant is engaged in all out war with Google at the moment, and I have to say Microsoft appears to be losing it. In fact, they were so angered with Google recently that the company created a spoof video attacking Google’s apps.
It doesn’t seem to have made any difference.
What I find funny about this one is that there is admittedly no connection to Lotus Notes, but you tie it in anyway!