Google sues US government over Microsoft favouritism

CLOUD SOFTWARE OUTFIT Google is not going to stand for the US Department of the Interior not taking its Google Apps seriously and is suing the government for favouring Microsoft.

Yesterday the company filed a lawsuit against the federal government for buying Microsoft Office BPOS-Federal without allowing it to pitch Google Apps for Government.

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, Google is furious at the US government for specifically excluding it from consideration. It says that this is "unduly restrictive of competition".

Google has been selling its Google Apps into the government and institution markets where the Vole has a huge incumbent market share.

The search engine had asked about the software needs of the Department of the Interior (DOI), but when it came time to bid it was told that only Microsoft's BPOS-Federal applications could meet the requirements. Google thinks that is rubbish.

The DOI added that Google Apps is inadequate because it is insecure. It claimed that Voleware was able to supply all the security that the government department could dream of.

However Google claims that the department has tunnel vision and that it was never going to consider anything other than Microsoft. Google also claims that Microsoft's BPOS-Federal is less effective than Google Apps for Government.

The Voleware has had outages and failed to pass previously required security measures, the lawsuit alleges.

Google's lawsuit said that the DOI has tailored its requirements to fit only Microsoft's product.

If Google wins then it will be granted an injunction to prevent the current agreement between the DOI and Microsoft from going forward, and it will be allowed to fairly enter the bidding for the contract. µ