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QUT Adopts Microsoft Live@Edu Email Solution

Announcement posted by Microsoft Australia Pty Limited 23 Mar 2009

QUT joins thousands of institutions around the world by selecting Live@edu as the platform to meet students’ technology needs for college life and beyond
Sydney – 17 March, 2009 – Queensland University of Technology (QUT) students will have a new service for communication and collaboration following the University’s decision to move to the Microsoft Live@Edu solution for student email. The Live@edu suite of innovative online applications and services includes Microsoft Outlook Live, Microsoft Office Live Workspace and SkyDrive storage.

QUT began evaluating the costs and benefits of providing a hosted Web-based email solution for students when existing email infrastructure reached its limit of functionality and storage capacity.

The Live@edu solution is the culmination of discussions involving students, University administration and representatives of Microsoft and included an opt-in trial involving students from the Faculty of Information Technology.

QUT’s Professor Tom Cochrane, Deputy Vice Chancellor for the Division of Technology, Information and Learning Support, said the University carefully considered various options and was pleased to offer students a greatly improved email service through the agreement with Microsoft.

“The Live@edu service offers our students the advantage of a greatly increased mailbox capacity and attachment file size, a useful calendar, plus a number of improvements in related services, while retaining their identity as QUT students in their email addresses,” Professor Cochrane said.

“As well as enhanced services to students, the University will benefit by having automated service upgrades, and better scalability and availability by deploying this software as a service offering from Microsoft.”

QUT student, Joyi Lu said: “The Live@edu email system was extremely easy to use and had a familiar interface. More importantly, the Microsoft hosted email solution prepares students for the workplace when they graduate from uni, where many companies are using similar products. So I guess QUT is once again fulfilling its motto of being a ‘university for the real world’,’’ Joyi said.

During the current semester, QUT’s 40,000 students will have access to a suite of innovative online applications and services.

The Live@edu service will host student email accounts and provide a significant number of benefits and opportunities including increased mailbox capacity (10GB) and 20MB attachments as well as calendaring and contact management.

Other features available through Live@edu include: Windows Live Messenger instant messaging and file sharing; Windows Live Spaces for personal web publishing, blogging and photo sharing; and FolderShare, a private peer-to-peer network that allows users to synchronise files between multiple devices and share files with other student users.

Live@edu makes it possible to create long lasting communities, with e-mail addresses students can keep after they graduate, and a rich set of communication services universities can use to help maintain an ongoing relationship with graduates.

Neil Jackson, Education Director, Microsoft Australia, comments: “Momentum continues to grow as Universities across the country discover the numerous benefits of deploying Live@edu. This service represents Microsoft’s vision for providing schools with an economical way to meet the cutting-edge technology demands of students without compromising budgets.”

More information about Microsoft Live@edu can be found at http://get.liveatedu.com

For further information or interviews please contact:
Jacquie Potter
Howorth
02 8281 3893
jacquie@howorth.com.au