The University of Technology Sydney has picked Microsoft’s Live@EDU as its new hosted student email platform, in a move which further locks Google’s Gmail offering out of Australia’s education sector.
The two competing platforms have been engaged in a running dogfight for the hearts and minds of Australia’s educational institutions over the past several years in Australia. But after a series of skirmishes, it appears that the Microsoft camp is winning.
Microsoft now counts several handfuls of organisations on its win list for Live@EDU — including UTS, Edith Cowan University, WA Central TAFE, Curtin University, the Australian Catholic University, the University of Western Sydney, Flinders University, TAFE SA, the University of NSW and the University of Queensland.
In comparison, Gmail has won fewer victories against the Microsoft juggernaut — counting the University of Adelaide, Macquarie University and Monash University in its camp. Google does, however, hold the largest education email account in Australia — NSW’s Department of Education and Training — with 1.5 million students.
In an interview this morning, UTS deputy director of IT Chris Cahill said the university had established a committee to decide between Live@EDU and Gmail. The committee had been aware that Live@EDU had gradually been winning ground over Gmail, he said.
This fact gave him “comfort” about UTS’ own move, he said, although he noted that the trend wasn’t a factor in the decision, with UTS deciding between the pair on their individual merits.
In the end, the choice between the two options came down to the fact that UTS was already using substantial portions of the Microsoft software stack, said Cahill, and also the support options provided by the software giant were seen as being above those offered by Google — including on-site promotion.
“To be honest, both presented a really good value proposition, there’s very little between them in my mind,” Cahill said. The committee did consider the user interface of the two offerings, but Cahill said he didn’t think there was much difference in the end.
UTS staff and students had previously been using a platform based on Sun’s ONE email system, but staff were migrated onto Microsoft Exchange last year. Asked whether staff could be moved into a similar Microsoft cloud email environment such as its Business Productivity Online Suite eventually, Cahill said “anything’s possible”, but such a switch wasn’t on the immediate agenda.
Google’s rival Gmail solution is likely to receive a deal of attention next week, when the search giant is holding a press event in Sydney to disclose two new additions to its list of organisations which have adopted its offering and “gone Google”. The briefing will be led by Amit Singh, the company’s vice president of international sales and operations for its enterprise division.
Image credit: Robert Scoble, Creative Commons
Melbourne Uni is planning on migrating to Google Apps.
http://www.studentemail.unimelb.edu.au/
Experienced being forced onto MS Live at the University of Queensland last year.
Made me want to smash my head against the desk… so terribly clunky and inoperable.
Setup a forward to Gmail on day 1 and never logged in again.
Love the contrast in opinion between selector and end user.
> there’s very little between them in my mind,” Cahill said.
> [MS Live] Made me want to smash my head against the desk… so terribly clunky and inoperable. — Mike Boyd
So does anyone get gmail rage?
I haven’t seen it … ever.
Me either — I don’t know what people are referring to there.
There is certainly a disjunct going on out there between the IT administrators and the users when it comes to Live@EDU vs Gmail.
And seriously who cares about the end user?
If you can save an IT admin an hour per day versus only 1 second per email across 1000 users with an avg of 10 emails per day then you’re out in front yeah?
No wait ….
Ok try this argument – think of all the extra work that IT admin can do if he’s happy from catching up on all his xkcd.com and a swag of people with the desire to “smash my head against the desk” surely those extra emotions translate to Gettings Things Done and the bottom line?
No wait ….
I’m sure the Microsoft stuff comes with a much better corn flower blue color scheme to sooth over all “smash my head against the desk” emotions. Yeah there we go. QED.
Haha yeah I just don’t get it. I don’t understand why selectors would choose Live over Gmail. It can’t be cost surely?
To my knowledge it offers nothing that Gmail can’t already do better… oh and Gmail actually WORKS!
Feel sorry for the thousands of people forced onto the Live system that don’t have the technical prowess to bypass it to something more consumer-friendly.
+1
> Google’s rival Gmail solution is likely to receive a deal of attention next week, when the search giant is holding a press event in Sydney to disclose two new additions…
Who are these additions? Why are we playing to Google’s timetable?
That’s all I know at the moment — I would tell you if I knew ;)
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