It turns out Kent State University has already switched to gmail for their mail services. Now all students and faculty will be able to use a wide range of additional Google Apps services. Story here.
The dominoes are starting to fall. I really hope that SUNY-Fredonia is somewhere next in that domino line.
In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve been on a Google Apps kick recently. Here are two of my recent posts on it.
Update: I forgot to mention that Kent State University is where our Vice-President of Academic Affairs completed her Ph.D….That’s why this story struck a chord with me.
We have Google Apps for our students here… though not for faculty. I’m sure it’s pretty widespreadh already.
I find myself unable to make up my mind about Google lately. I really appreciate their drive to innovate (and their drive to take down Microsoft, which may be the same…), and they’re doing things no one else seems willing or able to do, but I have to confess I’m a little uncomfortable with the power-grab they’re on, and what it mean for the future of the internet. Perhaps I’m just being paranoid, however.
They’re certainly a lesser evil… e.g., by making ChromeOS open source—it’s just that they do it in a funny way. They open source stuff at the last possible minute, and they don’t welcome community participation in the same way that traditional FLOSS projects do.
(You might also be interested in knowing that Ubuntu Netbook remix smoked ChromeOS in recent benchmarking… which made me rather happy:)
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=chromium_moblin_benchmarks&num=1
Kevin,
I share your paranoia. As much of a Google fan that I am, I worry about the power grab too. My enthusiasm is, as you have already touched on, is that they appear to be the lesser of the tech evils.
That’s awesome about the benchmarks.