After months of courting three potential e-mail service providers to replace the current Webmail system, members of the Student E-mail Initiative have chosen not to accept an offer from Zimbra, a subsidiary company of Yahoo!

If the initiative signs with a new e-mail provider, the choice will be between Google’s Apps for Education and Microsoft’s Live at Edu, according to Stan North Martin, the director of Outreach, Communications and Consulting for the Office of Information Technology.

“We’ve been getting complaints about the lack of file space. That was one of the drivers, certainly, was how can we improve the service we’re providing to students,” Martin said.

“The second reason we chose to look for a new provider had to do with the fact that some people didn’t like the current Webmail interface,” he continued. “The third is that it’s a way we can provide these services and save the University money, especially in these economic times.”

Students are able to create pilot accounts for both services through the OIT Web site. Chris Coggin, associate webmaster for the Student E-mail Initiative, said the response from those who have already tested both accounts has been strongly pro-Google.

“A lot more students actually chose the Google accounts over the Microsoft account, even though they can sign up and get a Google Gmail account anytime,” Coggin, a junior in computer science, said. “That’s basically all it is, but with a few more options because it’s been bumped up to educational  status. More people signed up for the Google service thinking it’s better than Gmail, but you can’t get Microsoft Exchange Labs for free.”

Martin said members of the initiative had already decided against the Yahoo! service when the company, in an effort to keep its name in the bidding, offered a free service.

Google and Microsoft already offer their advertising-free e-mail services at no cost, according to their Web sites. Martin said in an earlier interview that they offer e-mail for free in hopes that students will keep the same service when they graduate. Non-university affiliated e-mail accounts can host advertisements that profit the providers.

But even when Yahoo! leveled the playing field by pricing its product the same as Google and Microsoft, students did not think its features were strong enough to compete against Google’s Apps for Education and Microsoft’s Live at Edu.

“Yahoo! came back and said that they would post the service for no fee for students without advertising after we had told them we had taken them out of consideration,” Martin said. “We had a couple of focus groups with some students. Yahoo! wasn’t the best defended.”

Martin said the initiative will weigh students’ opinions for the new e-mail service, which is aimed to provide students with more storage and a broader range of features, as well as to cut costs for the University.

“Compared to what we’re spending right now to run the current Cyrus e-mail servers, we will save money,” Martin said. “There will still be some cost to provide the services in terms of setting up the accounts and managing them and providing support.”

Since OIT would outsource the e-mail service, Martin said it will have to pay less for server usage and upkeep because either Google or Microsoft will host students’ e-mail.

But students have until the beginning of next week to tell OIT which service they prefer. Martin said he hopes to process all data pertaining to students’ e-mail preferences by the end of next week.

The initiative is holding a forum on Monday that will give students the chance to ask representatives from Google and Microsoft questions about their products. Students can also sign up for pilot accounts of both Apps for Education and Live at Edu through the Student E-mail Initiative Web site.

“The key pieces are that students have access to the pilot accounts, and of course we don’t want them to sign up for the accounts and not use them,” Martin said. “We really want them to come to the forum and hear what they think about the services.”

Students will have the option to answer a short questionnaire at the end of the forum. Martin said those who do not attend the forum and who have signed up for pilot accounts will receive e-mails asking them to submit an electronic review of the systems.

There is a possibility that the initiative, for a reason Martin would not disclose, will choose to only upgrade the current Webmail system with new features.

“If there, for some reasons, are reasons why we would not be able to go with either of these solutions,” Martin said, “we could continue to provide Cyrus e-mail, but we would add additional file space if we can afford it.”

Coggin said he is excited to get either service, and is looking mainly for document collaboration and a global address book that will enable students to “be able to find other students that way and be a more available contact with their peers.”

“Google has a ton of things,” he said. “Microsoft’s a bit more limited, but both are strongly demoing their product. It’s a head-to-head match that’s actually pretty interesting.”