Some time ago I blogged in passing about how Google were starting to host email accounts for educational establishments and more recently about how they appear to be seeking to attract students to use Google tools in their everday College Life.
Well, it seems as if Microsoft are about to do something similar as part of their Windows Live @ edu initiative:
Connect your college or university campus with free hosted e-mail from MSN®. Provide all of your students and alumni with free e-mail accounts that potentially never expire, featuring a custom domain name selected by your institution. You and Microsoft® can bring your school the same e-mail, messaging, and collaborative services that a global network of millions of people already successfully utilize.
The service offers hosted email, Windows Live Messenger (which inlcudes video and voice communications), MSN Spaces, MSN Mobile and MSN alerts, as well as anti-virus and and junk email protection. The rationale for this service is discussed in part here.
There's no mention of Live's other recent scholastic release - Windows Live Academic Search - but I imagine this is all part of single targeted audience push? (Where was it I heard the prediction that it would be elearning that would drive internet growth?)
Just to see how the Google trial was going (aside from Google College Life, of course) I revisited the original blog post and found my way to a Gmail for your domain registration page, in beta at the moment.:
This special beta test lets you give Gmail, Google's webmail service, to every user at your domain. Gmail for your domain is hosted by Google, so there's no hardware or software for you to install or maintain.
As with the Microsoft offering, there's more than just hosted email on offer. In addition to Gmail, (with its 2Gb of storage, of course) the hosting package also includes Google Talk and (anytime, apparently) Google Calendar.
With both Google and Micrsoft allegedly to looking to offer unlimited freeonline storage in the next year or so (e.g. as reported here: Microsoft to serve up Google Gdrive storage rival ) it will be interesting to see whether they offer a hosted 'educational portfolio' product as part of their scholastic/educational hosting packages. Certainly Microsoft's recent acquiistion of Onfolio - and the speed with which Onfolio has been integrated within the Windows Live Toolbar - suggests this is not wholly out of the question.
And finally, I wonder if we're likely to see integration of these services within some of the larger VLEs at some point?
And if not, why not....? ;-)
PS for completeness, I guess I should add a link to iTunes U, Apple's free, hosted service for colleges and universities that provides easy access to your educational content, including lectures and interviews 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
And there's more:
iTunes U sets educational content free by delivering the best solution for the distribution of content that can be accessed by an iPod. And iTunes U complements other higher education online learning systems, leveraging existing investments in technology infrastructures. Making it all work together is seamless, thanks to Apple’s unmatched hardware and software integration and innovative management tools.Posted by ajh59 at April 23, 2006 04:53 PM