eCommunicator for Faculty & Staff

2006 Faculty/Staff Edition - Volume 3 > Virtual Sandbox

Playing in NUIT's Virtual Collaboration Sandbox

June 2006

Have you heard about Collaboration technology yet? Prepare for a better way to communicate, integrate, and collaborate with others throughout the Northwestern community.

NUIT has been working with a group of key technology leaders on campus to explore the possibility of a new common communication and collaboration suite of products to be implemented for all Northwestern faculty, staff, and students. Functionality will include enterprise level e-mail, calendaring, file sharing, instant messaging, Web conferencing, discussion forums, and full mobility features for handheld devices.

The Virtual Sandbox
NUIT created a sandbox (virtual test environment) to explore the feasibility of two industry leaders (Microsoft and Oracle) in our campus network environment. Through weeks of evaluation, it was found that both products, Microsoft Exchange and the Oracle Collaboration Suite, would foster collaboration and increase functionality and mobility for users.

While both systems have many advantages, the decentralized nature of our University environment, as well as the broad range of work stations and operating systems (Windows, Macintosh, Linux), better aligns with Oracle's standards-based platform.

The group summarized their findings and a recommendation for adopting one of these two systems has been made to the University. If implemented, this strategic initiative will result in much-improved opportunities for communication and collaboration across the University.

Look for an official announcement by NUIT in the near future about real-time collaboration and communication services as things develop.

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