Three more UK universities sign up to Live@edu

Microsoft's free email and collaboration service proving increasingly popular among educational institutions

Three more UK universities have signed up to Live@edu, Microsoft's free education email and collaboration service.

The University of Brighton, Plymouth University and the University of Huddersfield will each begin using the service for the new academic year.

About 35 cent of UK universities now use the service, and of those that use hosted email, 88 per cent do so via Live@edu.

"With constrained budgets we are looking harder than ever at how we provide our students with the best technology available, cost effectively," said Mike Whyment, programme manager at University of Aberdeen, which is already using the service.

"We are very happy with the level of security and privacy that Live@edu provides. In addition we have customised it, meaning the user interface can appear like the university's own email and storage portal."

Chris Randle, IT director at University College London, which took up the solution last summer, explained that data protection was a major factor for the university opting to adopt Microsoft's service over competitors.

"Microsoft could tell the university exactly where its data would be held and that the content of the emails would not be accessible to anyone outside the university."