Higher Education and K-12 institutions have always either lead in the IT field with innovative solutions or been way behind in technology to the point of not having any.

Open source has always been an option, although generally for the technically inclined but several years ago the big guys (Google and Microsoft), brought hosted E-mail offerings to the table that would out perform any locally installed solution and without a price tag associated with it.

A new player recently entered the market with their very attractive offering. ZCS from Zimbra.

Zimbra Collaboration Suite (ZCS) is a groupware product created by Zimbra Inc., located in San Mateo, California, USA. The company was purchased by Yahoo! in September 2007.[1]. The software consists of both client and server components. Two versions of Zimbra are available: an open-source version, and a commercially supported version (“Zimbra Network”) with closed-source components. These software versions are available from Zimbra for download and independent use, from Zimbra-authorized partners, and included with service from a Zimbra-authorized hosting provider.

So what are the options?

1. Outsource
   1. Google Apps for Education
   2. Microsoft’s Live@edu Service
   3. Zimbra’s Hosted Collaboration Suite
2. Maintain/deploy in-house

Even thought there are legitimate issues with outsourcing, like privacy of e-mails, loosing control over the capability to access logs in case of an incident and ads displayed to the constituents amongst others; the option to provide this same level of service in-house is not economically feasible.

Lets take a look what these services offer:

Features	Google Apps	Microsoft Live@edu	Zimbra
Mailbox size	7.1Gb	10Gb	7Gb
Attachment size	20Mb	20Mb	25Mb
Calendar (Private)	Yes	Yes	Yes
Calendar (Public)	Yes	Yes	No
CalDav compliant calendaring	Yes	No	Yes
Docs	Yes	Yes	Yes
Spreadsheet	Yes	Yes	No
Presentation	Yes	No	No
Forms	Yes	No	No
Messaging/Chat	Yes	No	Yes
Offline Feature	Yes	No	No
Workplace	No	Yes	No
Shared Drive	No	5Gb	No
SMS Scheduling	Yes	No	No
SMS Notification	Yes	Yes	No
POP3	Yes	Yes	Yes
IMAP	Yes	Yes	Yes
Access other accounts	Yes	N/A	Yes
Folders	No	Yes	Yes
Labels	Yes	No	No
Threaded conversations	Yes	No	Yes
Rules and filters	Yes	Yes	Yes
Built-In protection (Legal)	N/A	Yes	N/A
Apple Support	Yes	No	No
Spam Rating	10	7	7
Integration Rating	10	7	8
Site Management	9	8	8
Widgets/Web 2.0 Mash-up framework	Yes	No	Planned
Mobile Apps (BB, iPhone, etc.)	Yes	No	No
Data Portability (move you data to another solution)	Yes	Limited	Yes
Backups	No	Optional	Optional
Web Site/Portal	Yes	Yes	No
University Domain	Yes	Yes	Yes

Microsoft and Google are free provided that they can display ads for alumni and Zimbra costs $2 per year per student.

Resources:

Microsoft Live@edu:

Microsoft Live@edu video
Live@edu with Exchange Labs
Web Collaboration

Google Apps for Education:

Google Apps video

Zimbra:

Compare Hosted EDU Products

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