Over the summer, Student Union President Jeff Nelson announced in an e-mail to the student body that Washington University would be moving undergraduate e-mail accounts to Microsoft Live@Edu. Students can now register to participate in the pilot program that is slated to begin early fall.

Who it will affect
Only those who wish to participate in the pilot program will be affected this semester.

Although the University has yet to specify a start date for the pilot program or the number of students that will be allowed to participate in it, Nelson said he hopes that everyone that signs up will eventually be allowed to participate.

After the semester-long test drive the University will evaluate the program and whether or not the program provides adequate service to the University.

“I think right now we’re looking to see that there are no showstoppers.  The deans of the schools have made a commitment to improve their e-mail systems and online communication tools and Microsoft is something that we think will work here and this pilot program is just to make sure that’s the case.”

Nelson is hoping that at least all the undergraduate schools will be on the same system.

What has been done so far
Last semester, the University invited both Microsoft and Google to make presentations for their respective e-mail systems. Representatives of the University selected Microsoft Live@Edu to be the e-mail system piloted this fall.

“Going into the presentation, Microsoft definitely surprised a lot of us with the features that it’s offering. If you look at it, on the surface, 10 gigs of space is more than what Google is offering,” Nelson said. “So I think it was less about Microsoft being better than Google but more so about Microsoft being a better fit for Wash. U.”

Features of Microsoft Live@Edu

The basics of Microsoft Live@Edu will include an @wustl.edu email address with Microsoft Live@Edu services. Microsoft Live@Edu will greatly increase the amount of storage space currently offered by WUSTL e-mail programs—up to 10 gigabytes of e-mail storage space with another 20 gigabytes of online storage space offered by Windows Live SkyDrive for files. Furthermore, the e-mail system will have a fully integrated address book with all University contacts, so finding the e-mail of a group member becomes easy with the auto-complete function.

Microsoft Live@Edu also has better e-mail organization.  Conversation view keeps track of long, complicated e-mail conversations by listing the replies to one e-mail in one thread.  There will also be categories so that e-mails can be color coded for quicker identification and access.

Finally, Microsoft Live@Edu will offer tools specific to Microsoft, such as built-in IM with Windows Live Messenger and online versions of Microsoft Office products.

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Tags: e-mail, jeff nelson, microsoft, microsoft live@edu, storage space

This entry was posted on Monday, August 24th, 2009 at 8:09 am and is filed under Academics, News, Student Union. You can follow any responses to this entry through this feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.