Jill Aitoro

Public Eye

May 01, 2007

A colleague of mine recently asked how Google could make serious headway in public sector when the company was still a search engine at the core. I responded with what I knew up to that point: For federal agencies, Google offers an enhanced version of its Google Earth to support satellite and mapping applications, search engines for internal use, and a new suite of e-mail, document and spreadsheet products as an alternative to Microsoft Office. In education, Google offers its Apps for Education, which includes e-mail, instant messaging and a calendar.

But this week I heard about Google's plans to infiltrate another segment of the public sector. The New York Times reported about the company's recent partnerships with Arizona, California, Utah and Virginia to make online information more broadly available, using technical protocols that Google developed and other search engines have adopted to expose previously hidden Web pages. Beyond that, states can upgrade their sites' search capabilities by using the free Google Custom Search Engine service, which incorporates more expansive catalogs of terms to help citizens find the information they need.

And here's the kicker: Just like Google's education and most federal offerings, the services are free.

So what's the catch? None. It's a partnership that will benefit states and citizens alike by improving e-government services. But don't think Google is walking away empty-handed in this deal. As usual, Google benefits through potentially more advertising, as retailers read of these initiatives and figure on more exposure.

But beyond that, these partnerships are the latest in a series of ingenious business tactics by Google to reel in the largest customer base out there. Prove to public sector customers that the company's latest marketing message is true -- that Google is far more than a search engine -- and set them up as future customers of potentially fee-based services. And in the process, prove to the supportive, but still somewhat skeptical commercial world that Google is only just getting started.

In other words, this latest initiative is nothing new. Rather, it's the latest effort for that not-so-little search engine that could to take over the IT industry -- or at least a certain software company in Redmond.