Gmail on the up down under
Although it's very cool to post on the corporate message board: 'Hey - why don't we save the company millions of dollars by using Linux, Gmail and OpenOffice ?', there are obvious barriers (security and Excel luddites to name but two) to large corporations adopting server based software.
However, I always thought Google Mail would be an obvious fit for academic institutions to reduce the costs of software licenses and IT management. Adoption of such 'software as a service' would make sense as although some students are 'late risers', the majority could also be classified as 'early adopters' who are comfortable with the technology.
This recent announcement that the Department of Education in New South Wales will roll out (a customised version of ) Google Mail to 1.5 million students is an interesting development.
The cost of the new system will be $9.5 million as opposed to the $33 million for the previous Exchange/Outlook based solution with students getting an increased quota of 6GB (previously a miserly 35MB).
Although the initial contract is purely for email services for students only (no Google Talk), the obvious extension is to include Google Docs and Spreadsheets to displace Microsoft Office.
Related posts
Intranet on the Internet
Oracle AppsLab is one of my longest standing and favourite blogs.
Jake Kuramoto (and the AppsLab team) always post interesting and thought provoking articles and I also share a few areas of common interest (Twitter, Disqus, FriendFeed et al).
Although I happen to work for the same company as Jake Kuramoto, I have never actually met Jake in person. Curiously, I have had more interactions with Jake by commenting on the blog as opposed to communications via Oracle email.
When I read this recent post announcing a new version of Oracle Connect (an internal networking initiative within Oracle behind the ...
Read morepocket Web 2.0 dictionary
Define your favourite Web 2.0 service in two words (or less)...
Read moreintelligent automatic follow/block script for Twitter
London, near England - 23 April 2008. For immediate release.
Brightside Software Enterprises are pleased to announce the immediate availability of 'FriendOrFoe'.
Tired of being followed by those mindless idiots on Twitter, not to mention those horrid spammers ?
Tired of having to search out new friends with similar interests, sense of humour and outlook ?
Tired of being a 'soul in isolation' with 0 (zero) friends in the whole wide world ?
'FriendOrFoe' is a simple Twitter utility that will subject all Twitter 'Follow' requests to lengthy and vigorous inspection using sophisticated algorithms, advanced AI techniques together with analysis ...
Read more