LA gets tough with CSC and Google over Cloud roll out

Google and CSC’s landmark Cloud Computing deal with the City of Los Angeles is looking a bit wobbly based on reports this week from the US.

Two years ago, Google and CSC won a $7.25 million contract to shift 30,000 City of LA staff off of Groupwise and onto Gmail. The deal was hailed as a major public sector victory over Microsoft which also bid for the contract, but ran into controversy when the LA Police Department raised security concerns and refused to move to the new Cloud systems until these were addressed.

Los Angeles CTO Randi Levin has now written to CSC – the main contractor – warning that the city will not pay Google due to the internet giant's inability to provide secure email and collaboration. That letter says that CSC has been "unable to complete and comply with all LAPD security requirements" and other agencies that keep criminal records.

Now the city of LA is refusing to pay for those seats, and asking Google to do the work for free. "There will be no charge to the City for any Google licenses for the LAPD," proposes the letter. The City also wants Google to pay for the Groupwise licenses used by the LAPD through November 12, 2012.

The Citizens Against Government Waste lobby group, which has protested against the deal since 2009, says that this is evidence that LA taxpayers have been paying for a service that has not been working correctly. CAGW President Tom Schatz said:

“Taxpayers deserve to know how much this abrogation of the CSC contract has cost them so far and how much more it will cost if CSC refuses to cover the 13,000 GroupWise users through next November. There should be complete transparency about the total cost of running LAPD on a separate system, including support staff, lost productivity through the use of two separate email systems, and hardware and software maintenance. ”

He added:

“While the City has kept Google's breaches of its contract quiet, the Internet giant has held Los Angeles out as a model for securing municipal, state and governmental agencies based on the false promise that it could satisfy the needs of the second largest city in America. On its website promoting Google Apps, it actually lists the failed Los Angeles effort as a success…Google's record with the city is nothing but broken promises and missed deadlines…The situation is troubling enough for the City, but has serious implications far beyond Los Angeles. America deserves to know how Google has failed Los Angeles. ”

A Google spokesperson dismissed this as:

“the latest in a long list of press stunts from a group that admits to working closely with our competitors. ”