Swedish municipality Salem recently announced that they were the country’s first municipality to place all of their IT services at Google apps. This surprised me greatly, since it is such a dramatic step with extensive and complicated consequences. Did they really know what they were doing? It didn’t sound like it based on the public announcement. This is what I interpreted as their thinking:

• -we are just switching from Microsoft to Google, just a platform switch
• -this is basically a choice based on technological reasoning
• -this makes good business sense, much of this is free and we do not have to pay all these expensive licenses
• -we can put more resources into working with important policy issues
• -cloud computing is the future, so let’s embrace it
• -all the services are integrated, so none of that compatibility trouble
• -all services are reachable from anyplace
• -all of the 2500 schoolchildren will have the same platform

I would have liked to read their thinking on a number of other issues. The involved people seem to be well informed, so maybe they have already thought about things that concern me:

• -What are the ethical and legal implications in moving data and services from computers and servers owned by the municipality to computers owned by an American multinational corporation?
• -What kind of freedom of choice does the municipality have when investing in future information technology?
• -What kind of competitive advantage is Google given concerning associated technology on the local market? For instance, regarding smartphones?
• -In which ways can Google Sweden safeguard its information in relation to the mother company?
• -Did officials of the municipality have the right to take the decision to move information from Swedish citizens to an American corporation?
• -Isn’t information to be seen as a kind of currency? That we are giving away for free?
• -In which ways is the Salem information linked with other nation-based resources? What else was Google given in this deal?

And so on. Personally, I find cloud computing as a sideline to the regular Internet quite exciting. I find the trend to put all resources on the cloud scary. Very scary. Information is slippery guys, very slippery.