An article in this morning’s New York Times reports that Google is suing the Department of Interior for violating the Competition in Contracting Act by considering only Microsoft email and collaboration software products for its 88,000 employees, and not Google Apps.

with a suit filed Friday in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, Google is attempting to block the department from buying any of the Microsoft software until it allows competitive bidding. Google Apps are cloud-based tools. In July, the company came out with Google Apps for government, which passed federal security standards.

Google Claims U.S. Excluded It From Contract The New York Times November 2, 2010