On May 25, 2007, at 10:51 AM, Richard Wiggins wrote:
> I assume "Google in our machine room" is a metaphor, but to be
> clear here, Google is promoting a hosted solution that incorporates
> the university's logo into the Gmail look and feel. Here is an
> article describing how Arizona State was able to redeploy hardware
> and personnel after switching to Gmail for student mail:
>
> http://searchstorage.techtarget.com/originalContent/
> 0,289142,sid5_gci1245576,00.html
>
> If the service were hosted in a university's machine room, you
> wouldn't have the economies of scale of Google's global, low-cost,
> massive, self-healing file system. Here is an article I wrote in
> 2004 soon after Gmail came out predicting the pressure on
> university e-mail services:
>
> http://www.infotoday.com/SEARCHER/jul04/wiggins.shtml
>
> Don't forget that a big part of the package that Google is
> promoting for university student use is the hosted Google Apps.
> Arizona State has incorporated Google Apps into its student portal:
>
> http://www.asu.edu/students/
>
It most certainly was a metaphor. But I don't see how slapping an MSU
logo on Gmail buys anything than what exists now. I have gmail,
gdocs, gspreadsheets, gcalendar, gphotos, gtalk, gmoney, gwhatever...
I have all of these things now. I forward my MSU email to gmail. I
have gmail setup so that when people reply to me it goes to my @MSU
address. These things will be the same whether I use the plain jane
google interface, or whether I have gruff Sparty winking back at me.
My argument is what would we need to enter into an agreement with
them for? What does it buy us? #006633 colored lines in our gmail
client? I can have that now.
--Ray
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