Google Apps for [US] Government

This Official Google Blog posting says it all. And these words flesh out the thought:

Google Apps is the first suite of cloud computing applications to receive Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) certification and accreditation from the U.S. government. The FISMA law applies to all information systems in use by U.S. federal government agencies to help ensure they’re secure. The federal government’s General Services Administration has reviewed the documentation of our security controls and issued an authorization to operate, the official confirmation of our FISMA certification and accreditation. This review makes it easier for federal agencies to compare our security features to those of their existing systems; most agencies we have worked with have found that Google Apps provides at least equivalent, if not better, security than they have today. This means government customers can move to the cloud with confidence.

FISMA certification through the General Services Administration (GSA) matters not only to government agencies but to all those other organizations of any type (for-profit, non-profit, US, international, large, and small) who are on the fence about these concepts. They can now get off the fence and get into the cloud. (Metaphor police: sorry about that.)

Of course, if you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail, and if you have a spreadsheet program everything looks like a spreadsheeet. So perhaps it's not surprising that to me this looks like (among other things) a vote of confidence in Apple's iPad and the follow-ons that will follow.