A very bold move

On a February morning in 1993, more than 250 College students lined up for a chance to join the newest high-tech craze: electronic mail. Since the early days of e-mail at Penn, students have come to rely on this paperless communication device for everything from organizing group projects to staying up on news and planning dinner parties. Yet the relationship between upenn.edu e-mail addresses and Penn students hasn't exactly been smooth.

The 1990s saw some e-mail delayed by hours -- sometimes days. More recently, outages have often left students stranded. And instead of pooling their resources, most schools at Penn have their own e-mail systems. Making matters worse, the disk space, ease of use and reliability of free e-mail providers have far surpassed Penn's own e-mail system.

But fret no more.

The University may finally be making a very bold move: outsourcing its e-mail system to a major firm such as Google, Yahoo or MSN. According to School of Arts and Sciences Information Technology Executive Director Ira Winston, the University is already in negotiations with the companies -- and we couldn't be happier to hear the news.

E-mail is a vital component of most college students' lives. As the years have gone by, it has made less and less sense for Penn to be setting up and maintaining its own e-mail system. The big players can simply do it so much better and, likely, at a much lower price per student. And since the switch wouldn't mean a loss of the upenn.edu e-mail address, e-mail addresses would not change. It would also mean the ability to take advantage of all the other features now offered by the premier e-mail providers.

Google's Gmail service offers more than 2.5 gigabytes of space for free, while College students only have 65 megabytes (Engineering students have the most disk space, with 250 MB). Even worse, schools' e-mail interfaces are clunky and outdated.

Switching is certainly the smart thing to do.

The University was surely tempted to continue using the system into which it had invested so much time and money.

Winston said officials "talked to students in the late fall and early winter, and it was pretty clear what they wanted." And Penn should be commended for putting students' interests first.

Winston says a pilot program with one of these providers could be in place by the fall, and, hopefully, it would be one that avoids advertisements in its e-mails and its interface. And if the program becomes permanent, it will also make it much easier for alumni to continue using the same e-mail address -- and to retain their saved mail -- after graduation.

At a University that often looks at technology with a wait-and-see attitude, such as with the introduction of the Rhapsody music service, we are incredibly excited about Penn taking the lead in offering its students the best e-mail possible. Only a handful of schools across the country have made such a switch, and Penn could be the first Ivy to move to a major provider.

And we'll all be eager to see the end of those annoying "mailbox is full" messages.

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