The Australian federal government is exploring the feasibility of establishing a whole-of-government offering for email and desktop productivity tools.

The Department of Finance has recently engaged an external consultant to help examine the feasibility of engaging a cloud-hosted platform to be provided as a service.

Writing on the AGIMO blog, Australian Government Chief Technology Officer John Sheridan said “agencies could use these services as an alternative to procuring and managing their own email and desktop productivity software and its associated back of house hardware.

“The project will follow a similar approach to the recent feasibility study into a Government Content Management System (govCMS), which has now progressed to the implementation phase. The resultant report will enable Finance to form conclusions about potential viability of the proposed services.

“We expect that, at the conclusion of the feasibility study in November 2014, we will be seeking broader public consultation through the AGCTO Blog on how the services, which we are referring to as govMail and govDesk, could be most effectively delivered. The style of services envisaged may well be delivered through arrangements established in the recently released Cloud Services Panel which is in Request for Tender and closes on 20 October 2014.

The Australian Government recently selected Acquia to provide an open cloud platform for the development and continuous delivery of its Drupal-based govCMS service. Australia.gov.au and finance.gov.au are among the most prominent federal sites that are already on Drupal and planned for migration to govCMS.