The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration expects to cut its current email costs in half by moving 25,000 users to Google’s cloud email. NOAA began migrating email boxes for employees, contractors and associates from in-house servers to Google Apps cloud email and collaboration system in June and completed the transition in December, according to a Google blog post. The work was completed under an $11.5 million, three-year contract to Earth Resources Technologies, Inc. in partnership with Google, Unisys and Tempus Nova. NOAA has the largest number of cloud email users in the federal government. Last year, the General Services Administration migrated 17,000 users…

The National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration is now the third government entity looking to Google for a new cloud email system, Google announced Thursday. By October, NOAA plans to move 25,000 employee and contractor email accounts to Google Apps for Government. Users will have access to video chat, real-time document collaboration and support for various mobile devices, Dave Standish, Google’s federal civilian account manager wrote in a blog post. The General Services Administration is completing its migration of 17,000 email users to Google Apps for Government, which GSA expects will garner $15 million in savings over 5 years. Lawrence Berkeley National Labs selected …