Announcements

ASU Drops Google, Signs Agreements With Microsoft

In a landmark decision to improve the technology experience for its 60,000+ students, the University Technology Office announced this morning their decision to end its relationship with Google and their Google Apps and start fresh with Microsoft. Many of the details are still unknown, however a reputable source has made it clear that this transition will take place during the Summer 2008 break.

Student Gmail accounts, web-based (and now offline!) document editing and collaboration, calendar, website creation, and myASU accounts will be eliminated at the end of the Spring 2008 semester. They will be replaced with the mildly popular Microsoft Live@edu services. This is a similar set of services that includes an email account, calendars, and document collaboration.

The Microsoft Live@edu services are expected to launch in Spring of 2009.

Students will need to set up temporary services on their own for use during the Fall 2008 semester. According to Microsoft officials:

“This is only temporary until all the bugs can get worked out with the Microsoft Live@edu services. We really don’t anticipate it taking much longer than 1-2 semesters to get everything working properly. Definitely two semesters at the most. We would recommend students set up a new Google account in the meantime until we can get everything running.”

University Technology Officer, Adrian Sannier, is excited for the change. He has been a driving force behind the advancements to how students and faculty communicate. He sees this move to Microsoft as the University

“…heading in the right direction. With these new services, students will be rocking and rolling in cyberspace like never before. They will be able to send electronic messages to each other. Advanced users will quickly learn how to attach electronic files to these messages to share them with classmates and professors.

I’m really looking forward to seeing what Microsoft has in store for us. They have always been at the forefront of Internet-based technologies. I mean - seriously, who doesn’t have a Hotmail account? Did you know you can get like 2 Gb of free storage in a Hotmail account?!? That’s wacky!”

Google representatives could not be reached at the time of publishing. More news will follow as details develop.