Councilman Tony Cardenas made the motion to usher in the Gmail era in the City of Angels, calling it, “a state-of-the art e-mail system.” The $7.25 million contract was awarded by a vote of 12-0 to Google.

The decision ended a year-long battle between email vendors to win the contract to support Los Angeles City workers. The City Council considered a number of other software vendors including Microsoft.

Not everyone in the Los Angeles City Council is completely sold on the idea of going to the cloud. Prior to the vote a number of the Council members had voiced concerns about turning over the city’s data to the cloud.

Councilman Paul Koretz said, “It’s unclear if this is cutting edge, or the edge of a cliff and we’re about to step off.” Critics say they aren’t convinced of the cost-savings or Gmail’s unproven ability to handle the security measures necessary for law enforcement usage.

However if the City of Los Angeles can successfully implement Gmail as the second largest city in the nation, it could serve as an example to smaller cities looking to re-evaluate their mail system. At least that’s what Google hopes.

Microsoft lobbied hard to keep Los Angeles from choosing Google, sending executives and outside advocates to talk to council members. The maker of the ubiquitous Outlook/Exchange email software combination stands to lose a lot of money from companies that decide to go Google.

This will be a grand experiment to see how thousands of city employees take to Gmail’s threaded conversations and relatively-awkward meeting scheduling. How do you think this large-scale Gmail experiment will play out?