The U.S. has its first ever Chief Information Officer. Last week, President Barack Obama named Vivek Kundra, former CTO of Washington DC, the new CIO of the federal government.

Kundra made waves last summer when he signed a deal with Google, agreeing to ditch Microsoft Office and move the district’s 38,000 employees to Google Apps. While some were wary of Kundra’s decision, most applaud his progressive stance, which has dramatically cut IT spending and improved communication in DC. With low-cost SaaS solutions available, Kundra sees no place in the government for expensive and outdated systems. Last year he told the Wall Street Journal, “I am killing projects that don’t investigate software as a service first.”

Kundra’s first order of business as the CIO will be tackling the country’s $71 billion IT budget while addressing the issue of information access. His goal to make government information available to the public will begin with Data.gov, a public data feed, and Recovery.gov, a site dedicated to how stimulus money is being spent. While we’re unsure whether Kundra will be able to move the federal government’s entire IT infrastructure to the cloud, we can at least expect him to bring some fresh ideas to the job.