Google has had lobbying operations in the nation's capital for a while, but it recently located an 18 person sales force in a Washington suburb to sell its technology to the government. The Washington Post reports that Google wants agencies and the firms working with them to give cloud-computing a try.

That means using Google Maps and Google Earth to visualize massive amounts of information, using Google's search tool to organize internal data, and storing that information on Google's servers "in the cloud." The enterprise versions of the tools, which come with extra storage and security features, cost around $50 per user, per year.

"Most people are used to this technology--just not at work," said Mike Bradshaw, Google's head of federal sales and a man who has sold technology to the government for IBM and Microsoft. He said security risks could be eliminated by storing an agency's sensitive data on Google's giant servers rather than on employee laptops, which are more easily lost or stolen. The article also notes that Google's move into government business is a sign of the company's expansion into other industries and a sign of the changes underway in Washington's technology landscape.
 
For more on Google's expansion:
- check out this Washington Post article [1]