Google's Gmail is now the leading contender to replace BlitzMail as the College's e-mail system, according to biology professor C. Robertson McClung, chair of the Task Force on E-mail and Collaboration Technology and associate dean of the faculty for the sciences. The task force, which is also considering Microsoft's Live@edu, will make its final recommendation to the Council on Computing on June 5.
The Council will then make a recommendation to senior College officials by June 15.
The task force, however, has yet to finalize its decision, McClung said.
"It looks to me like there was a clear leader in this, but I think it's premature to say that's our recommendation," McClung said.
Task force members will speak with representatives from Google on Friday before finalizing their recommendation, Ellen Waite-Franzen, vice president of information technology and the College's chief information officer, said in an e-mail to The Dartmouth.
Gmail meets the needs of Dartmouth students, faculty and staff better than Live@edu, both in terms of ease of use and technical features, Waite-Franzen said.
The task force's various subcommittees analyzed the performance of the two systems' in April. The subcommittees also considered the results of several surveys that asked Dartmouth computer users about their e-mail preferences.
Over 2,500 tests were conducted over the past year on each e-mail system to determine how specific features performed in specific computer "environments," McClung said, referring to the combination of computers, operating systems, web browsers and other programs used by individuals at Dartmouth.
Gmail performed better than Live@edu when the task force tested transferring e-mails from BlitzMail to the new systems, and was more compatible with different browsers and operating systems, Waite-Franzen said.
The task force also found that Gmail was more compatible with the Dartmouth Name Directory, Waite-Franzen said.
Computing Services staff do not know whether the DND will be maintained in its current form once the College switches to a new system, she said.
Gmail also "consistently performed better" than Live@edu with Apple's operating system, Waite-Franzen said.
"We have a very heterogeneous environment," McClung said, noting that members of the Dartmouth community use Windows and Apple operating systems about equally, and some others use Linux.
Implementing the new e-mail system could take up to a year, depending on how much time it takes to integrate the chosen system into the computer network, McClung said.
"We'll go as fast as we can, while making as sure as we can that it's going to work," he said.
BlitzMail users will have a six-month window to transfer their e-mails to the new system, McClung said, adding that he did not know whether users themselves or Computing Services employees would perform the transfer.
McClung said he does not know how members of the Class of 2010 will be affected by the change, although he added that BlitzMail will "probably" be phased out by the end of 2010.
Both Google and Microsoft have offered to provide their e-mail services at no cost to the College, Waite-Franzen said.
