Georgetown University has "gone" Google.
The school has teamed up with the search engine giant to launch Google Apps for Education, "a powerful cloud computing solution," at the university.
Lisa Davis, Chief Information Officer at Georgetown University, recently blogged about the partnership on the official Google Enterprise Blog.
"Going Google was an opportunity to reimagine technology’s role at Georgetown and unify our campus by moving to a powerful cloud computing solution that worked no matter where our users were or what device they used. We had calendars, mail, and file storage and sharing tools before, but they were fragmented and in dire need of replacement. Our email system was twelve years old, only allowed 250MB per user, and calendars were not universally adopted or user-friendly. When our 16,000 students started using Google Apps for Education back in 2009, we instantly noticed some dramatic benefits. So we’ve decided to complete the migration by moving everyone over to the same platform. By summer’s end our 20,000 students, staff, and faculty members won’t have to worry about hitting email quota limits, guessing what teammates’ calendars look like, or being frustrated by the technology around them."
Cost savings of partnering with Google are significant, too, Davis wrote.
"Doing this in-house would have amounted to a tremendous resource commitment both now and in the future, for a relatively small boost in the end user experience. Google’s tools were an affordable way to provide a sustainable infrastructure for our faculty and staff."
Do you use Google mail, calendars, etc. in your work place?