Universities opt for Microsoft's cloud email service over Google Mail

Dawinderpal Sahota, Computing, Tuesday 4 May 2010 at 10:15:00

They argue that it better meets data protection requirements

Three major UK universities ?
UCL,
Manchester Metropolitan and
Royal Holloway ? have
migrated their email service to Microsoft's hosted email solution, Live@edu,
saying they chose this over Google's free solution, Google Mail, because it
satisified data protection requirements.

Chris Randle, IT director at UCL, said: "Data protection was a major factor
for us. Microsoft could tell the university exactly where its data would be held
and said that it would keep the content of all emails private.

?The company assured us all data would be stored within its Dublin
datacentre, which satisfied our data protection requirements.

?Additionally, Microsoft does not intercept mail or use any of the
information to develop marketing initiatives or advertising so all data would
remain private,? he added.

UCL estimates that it will save more than �250,000 by avoiding email upgrades
over the next two years as a result of adopting the system.

Following pilot trials, the university now has 13,000 students and 400 staff
using Live@edu after it was rolled out to all new entrants in September 2009.

Manchester Metropolitan University said that it selected Microsoft?s offering
over Google Mail as it felt it was a better fit with the university?s other
strategic products, such as its new SharePoint site.

A pilot project involving 3,000 people saw Microsoft?s Live@edu running
alongside the university?s existing legacy system. Staff were particularly
impressed by the ability of the Microsoft system gave them to share large media
and video files with their pupils. Some 35,000 students now use the service.

London-based Royal Holloway has also adopted the email service, with one
spokesperson describing it as "very straight-forward".

The university is using the service for 4,000 individual email accounts, and
Laura Gibbs, director of IT at Royal Holloway, said it will enable the
university to cut costs significantly in future.

?Live@edu means we won't have to increase
infrastructure capacity in the future to keep pace with demand, and the
reduction in the hardware estate will lead to other cost savings. Overall, we
are able to enjoy better performance with no investment and projected future
savings.?

Full story at http://www.computing.co.uk/computing/news/2262403/univeristies-opt-microsoft