Email gets Googled

News from www.schools.nsw.edu.au about the Department's new email contract with global e-giant Google.

Link: http://www.schools.nsw.edu.au/news/schoolstories/yr2008/aug/email.php

Email gets Googled in $9.5m deal

The education department will become one of the world’s largest clients of Google following the selection of a new email provider for NSW students.

Acting education minister John Hatzistergos announced SMS Management & Technology had been chosen to provide a customised email system for NSW public school and TAFE students, using Google’s Gmail service.

“Students will have greatly expanded mailbox storage capacity, improved user features and state-of-the-art filtering and security,” Mr Hatzistergos said.

“The new email system will cater for 1.3 million users and be in place by the end of the year.”
The new system will offer at least six gigabytes email storage per mailbox and be similar to standard Gmail to use.

The three-year contract is worth about $9.5 million with a two-year extension option.
The department’s chief information officer Stephen Wilson told the recent interactive classrooms conference in Sydney the decision made the department one of “Google’s largest [customers] in the world”.

Students will be able to access the new accounts, integrated within the student portal, by using their department user identification and password.
“We are also moving to put all [teaching and administration] staff on our upgraded corporate email system,” Mr Wilson said.

The email upgrade coincides with the rollout of the State Government’s $158 million Connected Classrooms program.

Mr Wilson said the program was ahead of schedule with 202 schools receiving their equipment by the end of June. Another 400 schools would receive equipment by the end of December. The bandwidth upgrade in schools was on schedule with the majority expected to have 10 megabits per second by the end of 2009.

“We will be, far and away, ahead of all other states and territories in Australia,” he said.

BEN WYLD