Google, GSA agree to major governmentwide software discount
Summary
The significant pricing discount is available on the Multiple Awards Schedule and based on the volume of the entire federal government rather than traditional agency-by-agency pricing, in line with recent major changes to GSA’s MAS program and President Trump’s executive order centralizing government procurement within the agency. “Google will now approach the federal government as one unified customer — and President Trumps GSA is working hard on this collaboration to turn that recognition into real savings to secure lower prices for best-in-class technology across all federal agencies,” GSA Acting Administrator Stephen Ehikian said in a statement. Google Workspace has achieved FedRAMP High authorization, meaning government users dealing with the most sensitive unclassified data can securely use those tools to, for example, transcribe meeting notes or compose emails on their behalf. The company’s focus on efficient and effective use of technology align well with early efforts at GSA and with the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency, which Trump initially set up to modernize federal technology but has also played a large role in cutting the federal workforce. “In my 25 years of serving public sector, all the different software companies Ive worked for in the past, I have never felt so relevant as at this moment in time, in our ability to serve government in the AI era,” Brent Mitchell, vice president of go-to-market at Google Public Sector, told Nextgov/FCW in Las Vegas, Nevada at the Google Cloud NEXT event.