Originally Posted by taylojl

Does anyone remember when gmail and google didn't work on campus for hours on end, while it worked off campus? Do we really want to deal with the possibility of system that may not be accessible? I like gmail, but frankly I like the reliability of the current system when it comes to my academic emails.

Are you talking about a couple weeks ago? I think that was an issue with the wireless on Mac overall, not just Google. Avenue wasn't working at that time either.

It was listed on Avenue as Mac's fault:
McMaster's Internet Service Provider was experiencing technical problems in the early evening making Avenue unreachable. The issue was corrected at approx 9:30pm and Avenue can now be accessed as usual.

Originally Posted by MiniDragon

Gmail is far far better than Hotmail, no contest.

With MS you get sky drive, but Google Docs lets you upload files too. You get 3gigs less, but that's pretty negligible. No one is going to need that much, I'd think.

The big difference is Google Docs vs Web apps, where MS wins out. Google docs isn't bad at all, but I imagine web apps would be much better since its based off of office. That said, I don't know if it has any collaboration tools like Googles Docs does.

Either way, I think Google is the way. Docs is more than serviceable, and Gmail is awesome.

Though yes they'd need to figure out why Google keeps going down randomly on campus.

I have to say that the collaboration on google docs is awesome. I don't think they've integrated live editing yet (They decided to stop supporting google wave, but they are bringing over the live editing feature to google docs) but you can still edit at the same time and it'll update every couple minutes. I recently experienced it with powerpoint.

One thing to keep in mind guys is that the Live.Edu Microsoft isn't "Hotmail" in terms of the interface. It is the webbased version of Outlook. (Youtube it for a better idea)

Which is for me personally a bit of a turnoff because I've been using that Outlook for my MSU job for the past 5-6 months and it is way way behind Gmail in terms of usability. For example I can't delete more then 10 emails at once, choosing groups and contacts takes quite a few steps and other little quirks.

Secondly Sky Drive has a 50mb file limit so one can't upload Videos or Games(unless you break them down). It'll primarily be useful for photos, files, music and other smaller files.

M$ soft all the way.

Originally Posted by Deegs14

M$ soft all the way.

you do know that M$ = Micro$hit?

Anyway, I'll go with Google. some days ago mail.live.com was giving me "Server too busy" for an hour or so and later they started maintenance on it.

Can't afford that on a primary school inbox + IMAP. Not that my MUSS account isn't linked with my Gmail account already.

Originally Posted by huzaifa47

One thing to keep in mind guys is that the Live.Edu Microsoft isn't "Hotmail" in terms of the interface. It is the webbased version of Outlook. (Youtube it for a better idea)

Thats even worse =/

Secondly Sky Drive has a 50mb file limit so one can't upload Videos or Games(unless you break them down). It'll primarily be useful for photos, files, music and other smaller files.

Google it is!

Sounds like the Google services are better, even though the MS ones seem more attractive on paper

Originally Posted by Afzal

you do know that M$ = Micro$hit?

Anyway, I'll go with Google. some days ago mail.live.com was giving me "Server too busy" for an hour or so and later they started maintenance on it.

Can't afford that on a primary school inbox + IMAP. Not that my MUSS account isn't linked with my Gmail account already.

ahahahaha, nope XD
I just assumed it meant Microsoft making a lot of money, being greedy, etc.
Know I know that!

My vote is with Google. They're just beter tha Microsoft.

Yeah in terms of the services alot of them are similar ie increased inbox, online documents etc but thats why I thought it would be helpful to give you the opportunity to try out the systems before voting from Wed-Fri in the student center.

Originally Posted by MD-L

Yeah in terms of the services alot of them are similar ie increased inbox, online documents etc but thats why I thought it would be helpful to give you the opportunity to try out the systems before voting from Wed-Fri in the student center.

You're right. There should also be a video or at least a damn picture. Seriously, people are just going to vote based on the name. If someone has been using Hotmail for all his/her life. This person is going to cheer for Microsoft. Same goes for Google.

Yayyyyyyyyy I'm unaffiliated with everything so I can put my two cents in.

First off, you don't just magically add to the storage limit of something. It's not like adding a frigging harddrive to a computer. It's about purchasing new servers, and new cooling systems, and new software etc.

Moreover, there is money allocated to a project. It's not as simple as 2 students going "who cares about email". It's a long and complicated long-term budgetary procedure intended on rolling out improvements to all parts of the University's technological infrastructure.

Second, Microsoft definitely looks better on paper, but that's it.

Their system is stupidly obtuse, their spam filters suck, they don't have multi-platform support like they claim they do (Outlook Web App is only fully functional in IE... and IE only runs on Windows, so it's basically a **** you to anyone on any other OS (...Apple anyone?).

Next, their system is brand new, and full of bugs. I've heard stories from other Universities about how they signed with Microsoft, were promised the world, and ended up with an overblown POS system that nobody used.

Google on the other hand has an amazing track record of awesomeness and innovation in their systems.

Remember that things looking good on paper are just because of marketing spin, and not because of actual reasons.

I'd go with gmail. Can't really justify it; it just seems to have the promise of being more reliable.

I doubt there will be much difference between the two in the end. Im curious as to how the UI would look. Id go with google simply cause of their support for multi platforms.

THe Skydrive looks good at first untill you read the last line saying 50MB max per file. Really?
That 25GB is just there to look good. I doubt anyone is gonna end up uploading 1000 files.

The Google online white board thing seems useful

I think that is a crucial aspect of this whole thing; which interface do you like more because despite whatever features either system has the accessibility of these features and the system on a whole will impact how much you use the system.