[imp] "big three" webmail providers courting campus

[tdrewry at bu.edu]

Our institution is seeing similar courtship from goggle and hotmail.  
However, we're much more interested in keeping our accounts local and 
our logs our own.

I will say that the same gripe your students give is the one that comes 
knocking on my door most often... interface.

We actually have an old silky mail installation we've been pushing 
along beside our Horde install for those people who "like the 
streamlined interface".

I have a student group this summer who are planning to create a more 
streamlined theme for Horde (3.1.4) as well as a jabber2 client that 
can sit, alah gmail style, under the sidebar.  Our first spec meeting 
is next week.  I'll post to the horde list updates as they become 
relevant.

Tobias Drewry

Quoting Liam Hoekenga <liamr at deathstar.org>:

> Our institution is being courted by Hotmail and GMail (and I wouldn't be
> surprised to see Yahoo to throw it's hat in the ring) - encouraging us
> to stop providing email service to our students, instead allowing
> provider /X/ to host all of our student email.
>
> One of my coworkers pointed out today that Google had placed an ad in
> our student newspaper asking people to take a survey, rating their
> satisfaction with our current email service (which, as far as students
> are concerned is IMP), and comparing it to how much more they like GMail
> (the survey's a little slanted).
>
> Anyhoo... some of the results could be changed by offering different
> Horde modules ("No IM or calendar functionaliy", "Can't get my mail from
> my mobile phone."), but the big one was a cry that the UI for IMP was
> too complicated.  These are early results, specific to our school...
>
>     What would you like to change about your school's current email system?
>      - Complicated Interface (24%)
>
>     What's the primary way that Gmail, Google Talk, and Google Calendar
> could be better than your school's current systems?
>      - User Interace (50%)
>
> I just don't see the UI for IMP becoming more streamlined as time goes
> on.. unless there are major plans for the Horde 4 / IMP 5 release.
>
> We don't have Kronolith or MIMP installed.  We're eagerly awaiting DIMP,
> but I fear that google's goal here is to organize a grass roots movement
> to get students to demand that we switch to GMail institutionally.
>
> I guess this is just a cautionary tale.  With the big three webmail
> providers offering free or massively subsidized hosting for entire
> student populations,  Horde is going to have to work real hard to stay
> attractive and / or relevant.
>
> What are other colleges and universities seeing?
>
> Liam
> --
> IMP mailing list - Join the hunt: http://horde.org/bounties/#imp
> Frequently Asked Questions: http://horde.org/faq/
> To unsubscribe, mail: imp-unsubscribe at lists.horde.org
>
>
>