"The Michigan Daily" about Horde
The Michigan Daily released an article today about the University of Michigan NOT switching their mail system over to Google. They use Horde and IMP and the moment and seem to be very happy with it. There are more reasons why organizations and companies should not move to Gmail or Hotmail.
"Many universities around the world are no longer offering e-mail services to students - at least not directly. Instead, some schools are now outsourcing student e-mail to Gmail and Windows Live in an attempt to keep up with the changing needs of students and evolving Internet technology." says Julie Rowe from The Michigan Daily. But the University of Michigan evaluated Gmail and decided to not make the switch.
"The University currently provides web mail through an open source
program released by the Horde Project. Horde's Internet Messaging
Program is one of the most widely used web mail systems, especially on
college campuses."
Besides that only 5% of the unversity's students are currently forwarding their mail to an outside provider, which is a sign that they are happy with the email service, there are also security and privacy concerns. We had a related thread "big three" webmail providers courting campus on the IMP mailing list recently. Joseph Brennan from Columbia University for example says: "And the students don't ask themselves how Google makes money from this? Maybe the expectation of online privacy is now an antique notion."
One of the users mentioned a survey which revealed that many users are unhappy with the interface which seem too complicated compared to Gmail or similar services. I really hope we will gain ground in this area again once we released DIMP.
Update: there is a much more comprehensive article on Inside Higher Ed about e-mail outsourcing.
