In February, Microsoft announced that they were going to be developing a version of their Business Productivity Online Suite that would meet federal safety and security guidelines, so as to keep their cloud computing service working for and with the United States government.  That was months ago, and according to Google, Microsoft’s BPOS-Federal still fails to meet the terms of their government contract.  That’s why Google is suing the United States Government Department of the Interior over the DOI’s insistence on using Microsoft products.

Google’s Apps for Government is currently being used by other branches of federal, state, and local government, and it also currently meets every federal safety and security regulation dealing with the handling and storage of federal documents.  Despite this, the DOI refused to even listen to a Google Apps proposal, instead choosing to stick with Microsoft in spite of Microsoft’s security flaws and several extended periods of down time (which violate the 99.95% uptime clause in the contract).  Also, several clauses that Google had a problem with were later removed from the contract after Microsoft was awarded the cloud computing contract.

Basically, Google has looked at the evidence and concluded that the DOI wanted to keep working with Microsoft no matter what, and altered the terms of the contract in such a way that only Microsoft would qualify for the bid.  Microsoft, which is expected to roll out Office 365 to replace BPOS later in the year, is not named as a party in the lawsuit.

Tags: Google, cloud computing, Google sues the US government, Microsoft, Google uses US government over Microsoft, Google Apps for Government, BPOS, Microsoft BPOS, Department of the Interior, Business Productivity Online Suite, government security, security, government contracts

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