Google Goes to Washington, Gearing Up to Put Its Stamp on Government

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Kurt Albershardt <kurt () nv net>
Date: October 2, 2008 12:58:25 PM EDT
To: dave () farber net
Subject: Google Goes to Washington, Gearing Up to Put Its Stamp on  
Government

The title made me think this was about lobbying, but apparently it's  
just business:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/28/AR2008092802216.html 
>

Google Goes to Washington, Gearing Up to Put Its Stamp on Government

By Kim Hart
Monday, September 29, 2008; Page D07

The tall buildings in Reston bear the familiar names of big government  
contractors: Northrop Grumman, CACI, Raytheon and Accenture. Last  
month another name appeared, but not one that's typically associated  
with the federal market.

Google has come to town, though you'd hardly know it from its  
nondescript, newly constructed building in Reston Town Center. The  
only clue to the company's presence is a small listing on the  
building's tenant directory.

The company's 18-person federal sales team is still unpacking boxes,  
arranging bean bag chairs and testing the new massage chair. Over the  
past couple of years, Google has been trying to educate federal  
agencies -- as well as the companies that work with them -- on how its  
search, e-mail and mapping tools can be applied to government business.

It may be one of the best-known consumer Internet brands, but Google  
staffers still get some blank stares when they explain their mission.

"Sometimes they'll look at us and say, 'But what do you actually  
sell?' " said Mike Bradshaw, Google's head of federal sales, who has  
sold technology to the government for IBM and Microsoft.

Their answer is nothing. Well, nothing entirely new, anyway. Google  
wants agencies and the firms working with them to give "cloud- 
computing" a try. That means, for example, using Google Maps and  
Google Earth to visualize massive amounts of information, or using  
Google's search tool to organize internal data, and storing that  
information on Google's servers "in the cloud." The enterprise  
versions of the tools, which come with extra storage and security  
features, cost around $50 per user, per year.

Perhaps employees could use Google Docs, a word processor that lets  
multiple people collaborate on the same document or spreadsheet.  
Google-powered e-mail systems come with built-in spam filters and  
virus scanners, cutting down on server maintenance costs.

"Most people are used to this technology -- just not at work,"  
Bradshaw said.

Plus, he said, think of the security risks that could be eliminated by  
storing an agency's sensitive data on Google's giant servers rather  
than on employee laptops, which are more easily lost or stolen.

Yet agencies have been wary of storing critical information on an  
outside server. IT managers have traditionally found it comforting to  
know all of an agency's data is resting on its own secure server  
somewhere nearby. And some systems integrators don't think Google's  
products are robust enough for defense or intelligence operations.

"They think that, because it's so easy to use, it must not be that  
sophisticated," Bradshaw said. "We take care of everything behind the  
scenes."

It doesn't help that Google doesn't operate like the typical  
Washington company.

Take its new space, a departure from the typical cubicle-filled  
offices of Northern Virginia. The conference rooms are named after  
famous Virginia natives, such as Patsy Cline and Lewis and Clark. The  
room named after Ella Fitzgerald contains a floor-to-ceiling photo of  
the singer. Nearby are big-screen TVs, supposedly reserved for  
videoconferencing. Meals are catered daily in the cafeteria. Vint  
Cerf, referred to as the "Father of the Internet" for his role in  
developing the network, has an office next to a cluster of Adirondack  
lawn chairs intended to promote discussion among employees.

Still, some state and federal agencies have become more receptive to  
Google's pitch, Bradshaw said, with 10 Cabinet agencies and several  
state and county governments using its tools.

Three months ago, all 38,000 District government employees started  
using Google-powered e-mail service, watching training videos posted  
on YouTube and searching through an internal wiki, called DCpedia.

The government also plots the locations of construction projects and  
broken parking meters, among other things, on Google Maps, so  
residents can see how many potholes are scheduled to get filled on  
their street or how many computers a neighborhood school received this  
year.

...









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