The U.S. General Services Administration recently revealed that by using cloud-based Google (News - Alert) Apps for Government that were first powered by Unisys in late 2010, the agency has been able to transform the way it conducts business overall. This in turn has lead to increased collaboration amongst its workforce and reduced costs.

The cloud-based Google Apps for Government installed by cloud services provider Unisys (News - Alert) included unique e-mail and collaboration tools. These tools helped about 17,500 GSA (News - Alert) employees save approximately $2 million in IT costs. GSA employees also expect another $15 million reduction in IT costs over the next five years.

Benefitting highly from the cloud-based Google Apps for government, GSA employees have been able to create and share more than 274,000 documents in Google Docs as well as create more than 500 internal websites using Google Sites.

"GSA has proven that innovative cloud-based solutions can help the government improve operations while cutting costs," said Venkatapathi "PV" Puvvada, group vice president for Civilian Agencies at Unisys Federal Systems, in a statement. "We are thrilled to be GSA's industry partner in this project and look forward to helping them continue to maximize the benefits of these tools as well as helping other agencies to follow GSA's lead."

Additionally, the company has seen nearly a 90 percent reduction in server energy consumption and 85 percent reduction in related carbon emissions.

The experiences of the Federal Systems Integration and Management Center and the Public Building Service have clearly shown how the use of Google Apps has transformed the GSA firm.

Now FEDSIM employees with the help of Google Apps have been able to use their smartphones and tablets to stay in touch with managers, edit documents and to view their colleagues' calendars. The video chat functionality in Google Apps has helped them reduce travel expenses and collaborate much more efficiently via "face-to-face" communication.

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