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Outsourcing Email: Universities Switching to Google Apps for Education
My friend Owen sent me this article about Lakehead University switching more than 38,000 e-mail accounts to Google Mail in three days. Here’s the core of the article:
Because it is getting the whole suite for no charge and it is entirely hosted by Google rather than on university hardware, the university expects to save $2 million to $3 million a year on maintenance and about $6 million annually on infrastructure.
And, Jafri said, students, staff and faculty now get 2GB each of storage space, versus 60MB with the old system. In addition, he expects Google to deliver 99 per cent availability. “It’s very hard for us to get to that level of availability.â€
There is no doubt in my mind that there is a progressive but, eventually, extensive outsourcing of email functions for all small to medium organizations. What is interesting is that public institutions are starting to do it and it gets in the press.
(Disclaimer: I have switched to Gmail a long time ago and never looked back.)