Live@edu now offers institutions the option of giving their students and alumni an Exchange Labs inbox and students get Messaging & Collaboration experience which is what they will probably use after their graduation. This also gives the University/School IT administrators a better control over messaging security and simplified deployment. Students & Alumni are accessing this reliable and security enhanced email experience from Microsoft for absolute zero cost. This service is actually provided through Exchange Hosting service, directly from Microsoft Live@edu .
Great Application Students really needed
This is the application Students and Alumni really want in their day to day life as they can now use a co-branded email inbox as their primary account. Also, they can use Office Live Workspace to save, access, and share documents and files online, and encourage themselves to do collaboration. Some of the on-campus collaboration includes shared calendars with free/busy lookup between students, student directories with administrative control to provision distribution lists, and the ability to add faculty and staff that are using Exchange on-premise to student directories.
Close Integration with Students environment
Live@edu & Exchange Labs works seamlessly with the information systems your students already use and closely integrates with your infrastructure. Universities can provide students with hosted e-mail with quota up to 10 GB inboxes and 20 MB attachments size limit. Students can also access their e-mail, contacts and calendar from Outlook Web Access and Microsoft Office Outlook, as well as from Windows mobile devices, similar to what they may experience in the work force. IT administrators in Universities can now rejoice as they outsource the time and cost of spam-filtering, server uptime and ongoing maintenance to Microsoft’s enterprise-class infrastructure.
How secure & safe are this service?
Microsoft Live@edu keeps your students’ data private and helps keep them safer online. Live@edu with Exchange Labs also now allows message tracking to confirm urgent e-mail was delivered, and content filtering, which gives IT administrators the ability to block e-mail with objectionable content.
Create Institution identity
Schools can establish the deep relationship with students and alumni through an e-mail inbox with logo of the school, institution’s custom theme and a school-branded e-mail address that students can keep after they graduate (e.g. [email protected] )
Other services to compliment Exchange Labs
Microsoft Live@edu, which also includes Windows Live Hotmail, Microsoft Office Live Workspace and Windows Live SkyDrive online storage, helps students increase their productivity and manage their studies, share information and photos, collaborate with other students and faculty on projects, and stay connected easily with friends and family on campus and after they graduate.
Who can use it?
Microsoft said institutions are signing up for Microsoft Live@edu around the world, from Japan to South Africa to Brazil to the United States. Microsoft is partnering with educators from around the world. Live@edu will only get better in the coming years as they get genuine inputs from Students and educators.
What’s happening?
Microsoft said representatives from schools around the world will visit the company campus June 23-24 for Live@edu World, a gathering for Live@edu customers and technology leaders to discuss how they are using the Web-based applications in the Live@edu suite to connect their students, faculty, staff and alumni for greater communication and collaboration.
Summary
In my opinion, Microsoft is giving too much to Universities to exceed all of their expectations at zero cost. Universities now have the tools to develop a collaborative community with its own identity and not having to worry about infrastructure.
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