In October 27, The Los Angeles City Council voted to outsource their email system to Google, here some highlights about this move

• Will support 30,000 users including the Los Angeles Police Department
• Migration will be completed by June 2010. A pilot will be conducted first to stress the security - reliability of the Service
• Main competitor of Google's was Microsoft
• Main Microsoft's concern is a cascade event of other smaller cities following this approach if successful

This decision is interesting because of the following points

• Was the "non-IT" people who made the decision. This was a decision voted by the City's council.... no stuff or comments about "functionality", "features", "capabilities"... nothing about that. Why ? Perhaps because for them, email is "a commodity"
• They are very concerned about what could happen, and they have more questions that answers now... nevertheless they choose to move !!!
  
• Will be real cost savings ?
• Will it meet law enforcements and security standards ?
• Since they will be early adopters... is the service "proven" to support them ?
• They want an amendment requiring Google to compensate the city in the event that the Google system was breached and data exposed and stolen... No such clause existed in the contract

As in many cases, only time will tell if this was an bright decision or a complete failure.... In the while it does bring to me the following thoughts

• Discussion about "technical features" is dismissing as something became a "commodity" (and business people is more active in decision making)
  
• Future decisions on email platform switch will look beyond the typical Lotus Notes vs. Exchange dichotomy: it will consider Google
• Will Innovation came from "migrating" to latest Lotus version or "switching" to Exchange ? I don't think so. But what about "shifting" the way the service is delivered... is that Innovation ? I'm not sure
  

What are your thoughts ?