Live@Edu Marked 'Future' of Student Collaboration

Microsoft has won another skirmish in the war for market share, as Queensland University of Technology agreed to transfer about 40,000 student email accounts to the Live@edu suite of applications.

Queensland University of Technology has been internally testing email products from both Microsoft and Google for the past year, and made the choice to use Live@edu based on student feedback and the school's overall familiarity with the Microsoft environment. Professor Tom Cochrane, deputy vice chancellor for the Division of Technology, Information, and Learning Support, also noted that the university's staff will be better able "to provide help in a Microsoft environment because they're used to it." (Source: australianit.news.com.au)

Cochrane notes that the decision to adopt Live@edu instead of the Google App suite was "carefully considered" and will provide students with a "greatly improved" service. (Source: computerworld.com.au)

Campuses New Battlegrounds for Tech Titans

Competition between Microsoft and other email providers like Google has been escalating lately, and universities seem to be the next battlefront. And for good reason -- with several thousand new students each year, one university can create an entire new crop of dedicated users within a single generation -- as long as the corporate sponsor providing the service plays their cards right.

Neil Jackson, education director for Microsoft Australia, said that the software megalith is discussing the merits of corporately hosted student and staff emails with 20 different universities. Despite recent losses to Google in the university email assimilation game (such as a recent Google contract with Adelaide University), Jackson doesn't feel particularly threatened by the competition.

3 Million Students Worldwide on Live@edu

"Google is our main competitor in this space. We have about 3 million students worldwide on Live@edu, with many Australian universities already on the list," said Jackson. In addition, "Live@edu, a free service, gives budget-conscious universities an opportunity to meet cutting-edge technology demands of students without outlaying large sums of money." (Source: liveside.net)

With the addition of international universities as a captive email market, Microsoft seems poised to climb back up the popularity ladder and regain some of the market share it has recently lost. In the meantime, it will be interesting to find out where MS and Google will take their fight next.