It looks like The White House has copied a page from Google's playbook and is now advocating that federal agencies move to the cloud.
In an effort to reduce government operational costs and move agencies to the cloud, the White House is launching Apps.gov.
Apps.gov makes cloud-based IT services (which includes Google Apps) available for purchase to all federal agencies and is an all-in-one store front designed to make the purchase and adoption of cloud computing services common place.
The Apps.gov mall is a pretty impressive marketplace for federal cloud computing services. The modern IT store includes business applications, cloud IT services, productivity apps, and even social media apps. Interestingly enough, Google Apps are made available for purchase.
The government's move to push cloud computing in lieu of desktop software solutions is quite revolutionary. According to the blog post on Apps.gov, cloud computing should show annual savings in information technology and tax payer dollars, as the government currently spends $75 billion on IT.
With federal agencies turning to online solutions for IT services, you have to wonder if this will push more enterprise companies to do the same.
Admittedly a US focused entry, but you have to wonder when the UK government will follow suit with the new Government Cloud initiative.