The City of Los Angles Ditches Novell, Goes Google Apps

The City Council of Los Angeles today voted unanimously to switch from Novell GroupWise over to Google Apps. This is a $7.25 million dollar contract that will span over 5 years and include 30,000 users. The migration to the new system is planned to start next June with a limited pilot.

While this might not be the biggest contract Google have landed, it is still a major break. If the city of Los Angeles puts their seal of approval on Google Apps, many other cities are likely to follow suit. Another reason why this is important is because it includes branches of the city, such as the law enforcement. If these branches approve the security of the new system, it will significantly boost the credibility of Google Apps.

For the past 7 years, the city of LA have been using Novell’s GroupWise. The decision to throw out the current system is likely to be welcomed by many city workers, as they claim the current system is ’slow and crash-prone’ (Press Release).

In addition to email, the deal also entails contacts, calendar and IM. While it is a bit unclear, it does seem like they are planning to fully rely on the web-interface, and not use any desktop-clients such as Outlook. It is also unclear if the city is planning to phase out local spreadsheet and word processors in favor for Google Docs, as it is included in Google Docs.

Links: Press Release