Student Union announced earlier this month that Washington University undergraduates will be offered an e-mail account powered by the service Microsoft Live@Edu this fall.

This new initiative will provide the means of what Student Union (SU) calls a “unified communications platform,” where all students, faculty, staff and administrators can share information with the same tools.

The decision came after a yearlong evaluation of Live@Edu and the similar application Google Apps for Education and numerous surveys, town hall meetings, product demonstrations and focus groups.

Though many students opted for Google Apps in their surveys, Nelson said that Live@Edu will offer all the features that Google Apps offers and “much more.”

Each student’s Live@Edu account will provide a 10-gigabyte e-mail inbox, 25 gigabytes of file storage space, a sharable calendar, online workspaces and direct integration with social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter.

With the new application, students will be able to search the e-mail addresses of classmates, arrange appointments with advisors and complete other functions all within the same system.

Visit studlife.com throughout the week for more updates on Live@Edu.