Central TAFE signs up to Microsoft Live@Edu

The Live@edu suite of online applications and services includes Microsoft Outlook Live, Microsoft Office Live Workspace and SkyDrive storage.

Students at Central TAFE in Western Australia, one of Australia's largest TAFE colleges, decided to adopt the solution because it previously had no email in place.

In September 2008, the WA TAFE Colleges joined forces declaring an 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.

Neil Fernandes managing director Central TAFE said Microsoft's Live@edu platform was exactly the solution Central TAFE was looking for to meet the growing needs of its students.

The colleges are currently trialling the solution with approximately 500 students.

Following completion of the pilot, up to 15,000 enrolling students will be issued with Live@edu email addresses.

If all 10 of the WA TAFEs agree, there is the potential for approximately 120,000 students who could sign up to the service.

Neil Jackson, education director, Microsoft Australia, said 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 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.