Secretary Clinton Announces State Department Use of Chrome
Secretary Hillary Clinton spoke at a town hall meeting with State Department
employees. She began with a review of the State Department’s Quadrennial
Diplomacy and Development Review (QDDR). She warned Iraqi leaders against
“blowing this opportunity,” referring to recent violent episodes in that country,
and announced that Google’s Chrome Web browser would be deployed throughout the
department for the first time. She also said she did not intend to continue in
her position in a possible second term of the Obama administration, saying she
was ready to retire from public service
Posted by Chris Bronk, Senior Advisor, IRM’s Office of eDiplomacy, U.S.
Department of State
Editors note: We were excited to hear that Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton herself announced to State employees that they would be getting the
Chrome browser. Now that they have it, we invited Chris to share some more
details.
The
State Department gave our
employees around the world a special Valentine’s Day gift as we made the Google
Chrome browser available to all employees on February 14. This makes us the first
U.S. cabinet department to make Chrome available department-wide.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made the announcement to a town hall meeting
of State Department employees, where it was greeted with rousing applause:
State’s historical approach to browsers is to test compatibility with all
corporate, enterprise-level applications and remediate any issues prior to full
release. We’ve taken a different approach with Chrome. Offering Chrome as a
browser option allows us to take full advantage of Chrome’s speed -- from quick
startup to rapid website loading -- plus the ability to access the full range of
modern websites, and will allow our employees to be more productive in their
work. When a new release of Chrome is made available with enhanced functionality
or added security, we can release it into production immediately, bypassing
cumbersome testing.
With
Chrome for Business, our Information Resources Management (IRM) team was able
to deploy Chrome quickly and securely. After two weeks, it has been installed on
over 58,000 PCs around the world or around 60% of our enterprise. The
administrative capabilities of Chrome for Business will allow IRM to manage the
browser going forward, making sure that all employees are on the same version and
can take advantage of new features that are regularly made available in new
Chrome releases.
We’re enthusiastic to be leading the charge to bring an enhanced web browsing
experience to State employees executing the critical U.S. diplomatic mission
around the world!