In an interview, FAA chief information officer David Bowen said he’s taking a close look at the Premier Edition of Google Apps as he mulls replacements for the agency’s Windows XP-based desktop computers and laptops. Bowen cited several reasons why he finds Google Apps attractive. “It’s a different sort of computing strategy,” he said. “It takes the desktop out of the way so you’re running a very thin client. From a security and management standpoint that would have some advantages.”Google launched Google Apps Premier Edition last month at a price of $50 per user, per year. It features online e-mail, calendaring, messaging, and talk applications, as well as a word processor and a spreadsheet. The launch followed Google’s introduction of a similar suite aimed at consumers in August. The new Premier Edition, however, offers enhancements, including 24×7 support, aimed squarely at corporate and government environments.Bowen said he’s in talks with the aviation safety agency’s main hardware supplier, Dell Computer, to determine if it could deliver Linux-based computers capable of accessing Google Apps through a non-Microsoft browser once the FAA’s XP-based computers pass their shelf life. “We have discussions going on with Dell,” Bowen said. “We’re trying to figure out what our roadmap will be after we’re no longer able to acquire Windows XP.”
[InformationWeek]
This on top of the number of Government agencies either suggesting to not upgrade to Vista or right out stating that their computers shouldn’t be running Windows with Internet Explorer at all, leads to thoughts that a growth in other Operating Systems besides Windows may be near.
I don’t understand fully the thought it would be hard to train people on a new Google Apps/Linux setup. They could get started and get comfortable using Google Apps, and then start a slow switch to linux, and depending on the distro, it could be a fairly fast switch. As distributions such as Ubuntu strive to be very user friendly.
Tags: Google, Interesting, Irony, Linux, News, Technology
[...] Original post by Patrick Havens [...]