Another day, and another federal agency announces a move of its email and messaging services to "the cloud."

In this case, it's the Agriculture Department, which said Dec. 8 that it awarded a contract to Dell in May 2010 to move its 120,000 email users to a Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) cloud, where they will also have access to web conferencing, document collaboration and instant messaging tools. The migration is set to start no later than the first days of January.

Department Chief Information Officer Chris Smith made use of an automotive metaphor to describe the switch.

"Basically, the car we owned was getting ready for a major engine overhaul," he said in a Microsoft press release. "All our servers were at least three years old. We're going from owning the car and paying for the tires, the oil, and the upkeep to basically buying a Zipcar that's wherever we need it, whenever we need it."

Agriculture's announcement comes just days after the General Services Administration said it would move its email to a Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) cloud-based service, and not long after the Army announced it would migrate its email to a Defense Information Systems Agency cloud.

Not too far in the past is also news of an lawsuit by Google against the Interior Department. Google alleges that the Interior request for quotes "specified that only the Microsoft Business Productivity Online Suite-Federal (BPOS-Federal) could be proposed."

An Agriculture press release called the migration "the culmination of USDA CIO Chris Smith's effort to streamline agency messaging, reduce costs and improve efficiencies that build on existing infrastructure."

For more:
- read the Agriculture press release and the Microsoft release
- learn more about Zipcar

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