Andre Yoskowitz
11 May 2013 19:30
Boston Mayor Thomas Menino has announced that the city will be moving from Microsoft Exchange to Google Apps, the company's own suite of software for enterprise (and government) users.
The mayor has over 20,000 city employees. Boston is not the first municipality to make the switch as a number of large cities, agencies and large corporations have already made the move.
"We are continuing to drive it forward," added Bill Oates, Boston's chief information officer. "We've been ready, willing, and able to leverage any of these new capabilities."
The CIO says it costs about $100 per year per employee for Microsoft's products. The city says it will cost about $800,000 to move to Google Apps, but the move will save the government $280,000 per year moving forward.
Furthermore, Google's contract terms are said to be much simpler than Microsoft's. Additionally, Google updates all of its software via the Internet, which Microsoft only just began doing, and not even with all of their products.