UTPA joins Microsoft team
p2p news / p2pnet: The University of Texas-Pan American has decided to “outsource” its 17,000 student e-mail accounts.
Or put another way, Bill and the Boyz will henceforth be able to freely plumb the university’s email account owners because the school has hooked up, line and sinker, with Microsoft, says Reuters.
And it, “all boils down to advertising”.
Not that Texas-Pan American is alone. Microsoft has, “clinched deals to host e-mail systems for 72 institutions around the world and is in active discussions to add almost 200 more schools,” says the story.
What with the entertainment industry’s ongoing conversion of major US teaching institutions into sales units, pretty soon would-be students will need marketing certificates before they’re allowed to register.
The school can still create e-mail addresses, “ending in utpa.edu” and, “many students were already familiar with Microsoft’s Hotmail e-mail service,” says Reuters.
Microsoft sees college campuses, “as a way to promote its new Windows Live platform, an advertising-funded one-stop shop for Microsoft’s Web services from e-mail to news to instant messaging to blogs,” observes the story.
“Our communication assets (e-mail, MSN messenger) are one great way to add new people onto our network and establish lifetime loyalty,” Reuters has Walter Harp, Microsoft’s senior product manager in charge of the Windows Live@edu project, stating.
“The more services that the students use, the more likely they will remain heavy Windows Live users once they graduate, especially if they can continue to receive e-mails at the same address for years to come.”
But, “Microsoft promises most colleges not to display ads while the students are in school, but then will turn on the ads once they graduate, creating a pool of young, educated and potentially wealthy consumers for advertisers to target.”
Meanwhile, “When you look at that demographic, everybody is after them,” says Harp. “They’re extremely hot. It all boils down to advertising.”
Also See:
Reuters – Microsoft heads to college to pitch Windows Live, April 21, 2006
ongoing conversion – Big Music university shill report, September 21, 2005
April 22nd, 2006 at 3:45 pm
heythis might actually be a good thing for microsoft. nice article!
April 22nd, 2006 at 8:56 pm
what about the people with firefox. Last I heard, live refuses to play well with firefox and many Universities, including parts of Penn State(the university I go to) have already switched to firefox. Seems like another attempt by microsoft to force people to use their browser.