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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