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I have listed the arguments made by the ITO of Arizona State University below: 1) ASU decided that they needed a higher level of interactive technology to adequately meet the needs of its students. (I think that is probably true, although it is strange that it only applies to students and not faculty or staff). 2) The IT people at ASU were spending too much time providing direct service to students. (i.e. Google is cheaper). 3) The IT at ASU was unable to keep up with the exponential growth in email demands. (This is also true but the argument that a larger company can keep up better is fallacious. Large or small, exponential growth costs grow somewhere near exponentially). 4) Google is able to put a lot of research into developing high level tools for collaboration. (This is true both for Google and a number of other companies). 5) Google is the only company that will be able to sustain the rate of development of Internet Applications. (This is probably false). 6) The decision to change to Google email was so easy that is was made in two weeks. (i.e. Google is cheaper). 7) Student email was previously a source of a lot of support calls. (i.e. Google is cheaper). 8) IT at ASU now has the time to focus on how the students use technology. (i.e. Google is cheaper). 9) ASU plans to save $400,000 per year in making the change. (i.e. Google is cheaper). 10) Even organizations the size of large universities cannot compete with industrial sized giants when it comes to email provision and security. (This is true). My conclusion is that MSU does need an industry supported email system. Google is cheap in the short term but the real costs are unknown. The concept that you can have an unlimited supply of something for nothing is clearly erroneous unless you believe in pyramid schemes. _____ From: Samone E. Jones [mailto:[log in to unmask]] Sent: Friday, May 25, 2007 12:45 PM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: [MSUNAG] Google wants msu.edu? What can they do that we can't... Sorry if this is redundant, but doing my own research on this Google issue I ran across a YouTube video of Arizona States' head Information Technology Officer. He's definitely singing Google's praises (the video is posted by Google) but he makes some solid points. Here's the link if anyone is interested - I found it informative - it's a summary of how Arizona went about it and their perspective of why they switched and how they feel they benefited- It's only 4 minutes long: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_x2fJRW_vvQ> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_x2fJRW_vvQ Samone E. Jones Information Technologists Family & Consumer Sciences Michigan State University East Lansing, MI 48824 Voice: 517.432.4552 Fax: 517.353.4846 [log in to unmask] __________ NOD32 2292 (20070525) Information __________ This message was checked by NOD32 antivirus system. http://www.eset.com