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

Three UK universities have opted for Microsoft's live@edu free hosted email solution

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.”