Dive Summary:
- Google and Microsoft are taking the battle for campus e-mail and cloud services from administrators to the hearts and minds of students.
- Both companies have hired student advocates for years to promote their products in demonstrations and workshops.
- Despite Google being seen as the "hipper" of the two companies and holding an edge in e-mail service, a Student Monitor survey showed that students still prefer Microsoft Word for writing papers, and the software giant has taken steps to improve its cool factor by sponsoring events like Princeton's twice-annual Lawnparties.
From the article:
The battle for campus e-mail and cloud services is becoming a ground war. Google and Microsoft have been jockeying to insinuate themselves into the hearts and minds of college students by striking deals with colleges and universities to provide free cloud computing services to students - e-mail, mostly, but also other applications that allow students to compose and save work on "cloud" servers located far from campus. For the most part the sales forces for these companies have tried to court campus administrators in charge of making the buys and negotiating the contracts. ...