Central TAFE First WA TAFE to Adopt Microsoft’s

Live@Edu Email Solution

Sydney – 23 June, 2009 – Students at Central TAFE in Western Australia, one of Australia’s largest TAFE colleges, will soon have a new service for communication and collaboration following the college’s decision to move to Microsoft’s Live@Edu solution for student email. The Live@edu suite of innovative online applications and services includes Microsoft Outlook Live, Microsoft Office Live Workspace and SkyDrive storage.

Previously there were no student email services in place for Central TAFE students. Recognising this gap in their student offerings, Central TAFE, in collaboration with the ten other TAFE Colleges in Western Australia, began looking for a hosted email solution for student email services. In September 2008, the WA TAFE Colleges joined forces and issued an expression of interest to providers of hosted email services.

In May 2009, Microsoft’s Live@edu solution was chosen from the public tender process by the WA TAFE Working Committee. Central TAFE’s Managing Director, Neil Fernandes, said: “Microsoft’s Live@edu platform was exactly the solution Central TAFE was looking for to meet the growing needs of our students. We will be introducing a robust student email offering, that enables connectivity and collaboration right across our campuses.” 

Central TAFE is currently trialling Live@edu with approximately 500 students. The students will be derived from the classes led by lecturers who have offered to be part of the pilot.  It is expected that this pilot group will have representation from most, if not all of the college’s learning portfolios. Following completion of the pilot, up to 15,000 enrolling students will be issued with Live@edu email addresses.

After the pilot phase concludes, each of the WA TAFEs that were part of the initial tender will decide if they wish to proceed with Live@edu. The experience and knowledge gained by Central TAFE as the pilot college will be shared to enable each TAFE to fast track their own implementation.  If all ten of the WA TAFEs follow suit, there is the potential for approximately 120,000 students to benefit from the Live@edu service across the State.

Neil Jackson, Education Director, Microsoft Australia, said: “We’re thrilled about the growing momentum behind our Live@edu student email solution and it’s exciting to see more and more educational institutions in Australia discovering its benefits. This offering is providing educational facilities with a cost effective and advanced email service without significantly impacting their budgets.”

The Live@edu service will host student email accounts and provide a significant number of benefits and opportunities including increased mailbox capacity (10GB) and 20MB attachments as well as calendaring and contact management. 

Other features available through Live@edu include: Windows Live Messenger and file sharing; Windows Live Spaces for personal web publishing, blogging and photo sharing; and FolderShare, a private peer-to-peer network that allows users to synchronise files between multiple devices and share files with other student users. 

Live@edu makes it possible to create communities that last a lifetime, with e-mail addresses students can keep after they graduate, and a rich set of communication services universities can use to help maintain an ongoing relationship with graduates.

More information about Microsoft Live@edu can be found at http://get.liveatedu.com

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For further information or interviews please contact:

Jacquie Potter

Howorth

02 8281 3893

jacquie@howorth.com.au