The institute had no way of communication between the faculty and the students. It wanted to offer Web-based mail communication and collaboration services that its students preferred.

1. Microsoft Live@edu
Customer Solution Case Study
Education Institute Chooses Hosted e-mail;
Provides 7150+ Active Live e-mail IDs
Overview “Microsoft takes care of costly, labor-intensive hosting
Country or Region: India
Industry: Education
and storage. It adds up to a significant budget
reduction for a much superior service. The bottom line
Customer Profile
The Shree Chanakya Education Society
is, with Microsoft Live@edu, we can better provide
(SCES) was established in February 1994, hosted Web mail and online collaboration services for
with the aim of providing top quality post-
graduate education in the fields of
our students, while saving money.”
Business Management, International Santosh Kumar, Director (IT), SCES
Business and Information Technology.
Business Situation Shree Chanakya Education Society (SCES), Pune, was established
The institute had no way of communication
in 1994, with the explicit vision to provide sustainable impetus to
between the faculty and the students. It
wanted to offer Web-based mail the corporate and entrepreneurial abilities in the youth. But the
communication and collaboration services
that its students preferred.
existing e-mail service at SCES was not user friendly, and the
administration wanted to provide a better solution to help students
Solution
SCES chose Microsoft® Live@edu, a set of stay in touch with peers and communicate with faculty. They chose
free hosted communication and Microsoft® Live@edu, a set of Web-based communication and
collaboration services designed to meet the
needs of students and faculty. collaboration services. Students are excited about the new
solution’s reliability. It provides them more storage space per e-mail
Benefits
 Effective collaboration account and access to online storage with Windows Live™ SkyDrive.
 Greater storage
 Reduced maintenance
Students are using Live@edu to get better organized, improve
 Staying connected communications with their professors, and create online study
groups so they are better prepared for class.

2. “We wanted a solution Situation mail service that unified and streamlined
The Shree Chanakya Education Society communications between the university and
which we could adopt (SCES) was established in February 1994, its student body.”
without any extra under the visionary leadership of Mrs. Tarita
Wakalkar Mehendale, with the aim of Other requirements from the solution were:
overheads; and which providing top quality post-graduate education  An effective means of communication
would require minimal in the fields of Business Management, between the students and the faculty
International Business and Information  Effective inter organization communication
training. Microsoft is a Technology. Since inception, the Institutes (staff-faculty-directors)
well-respected name managed by SCES, have maintained high  Work collaboration for projects, and
academic standards and have successfully meetings
and we were assured provided trained manpower to the industrial  Online storage solution which can be
that the service would and services sector of the country. shared among peers on permission basis
be reliable and well With a modest strength of 60 students The decision was thus made to replace the
supported.” pursuing a single course, SCES has grown existing e-mail service with a more robust,
steadily and today boasts of 14 institutes, Web-enabled solution.
Rohit Khirapate, Web Administrator, SCES having more than 8000 students from all
over India pursuing multi-disciplinary,
graduate and post-graduate programmes. Solution
Challenged by lack of communication
SCES employs a total of 400 staff members between the faculty and students, SCED
who have invaluable experience in varied began evaluating different options for a
areas like academics, industry, service and replacement e-mail service. The need for
social-work. To create an official online easy-to-use and feature rich interface
communication medium for the organization, dictated that the university implements a
it offers a messaging solution managed by hosted solution. After comparing Google Apps
third party Web solution provider. Members and Microsoft® Live@edu, SCED chose
are provided with Post Office Protocol version Windows Live@edu, a free, Microsoft-hosted
3 (POP 3) and Webmail (via Squirrel mail) set of university-branded, hosted messaging
services with subscription based Spam and collaboration solution for universities.
Filtering service. Maintenance and storage
issues were managed by the third party “We wanted a solution which we could adopt
administrators and issues were solved without any extra overheads; and which
whenever they aroused via support channels. would require minimal training,” says
Santosh Kumar, Director (IT), SCES.
However, this system was limited only to the “Microsoft is a well-respected name and we
staff and not implemented for students. This were assured that the service would be
meant that there was no e-mail reliable and well supported.”
communication between students and faculty
members. “This was definitely the weakest The new solution provides 7150+ active live
link in our IT-based student services,” says e-mail ids and 1050+ users have been
Janardan Pawar, Vice Principal, ICCS. “We trained to use these. 12 institutes have
needed a reliable, easy-to-use, and flexible e- started using the Live Services.

3. Effective Collaboration
Along with online communication and With features such as Microsoft Office Live
collaboration services, Live@edu also Workspace and Windows Live Spaces,
provides student e-mail and calendaring Live@edu provides online services to store,
services. It equips students with e-mail and share, and edit documents.
calendar tools similar to what they may use in
the workforce. During team projects students are
collaborating with Workspaces for sharing
Live@edu provides SCES online services to
documents. Microsoft Office Live Workspace
store, share, and edit documents. It has
provides students an online place to save,
answered the students’ wishes for more
access, and share documents and files. With
storage space and features like Windows Live
Windows Live Spaces they can share this
Spaces for sharing documents, photos, and
space with the world.
blogs. Other features such as Windows Live
SkyDrive, allow students to store, access and
Effective communication with Outlook Live
share files with friends or classmates, from
helps faculty to reach out to students, and
anywhere online. It provides 25 GB of free
inform students’ in-time for guest lectures
online storage. Additionally, Microsoft Office
and extra lectures with Outlook Calendar
Live Workspace provides online place to
feature.
save, access, and share documents and files.
“All these effective ways of collaboration
“The students loved all the features offered in which hep to store, share, and edit
Windows Live@edu,” says Pravin Dange, documents, increase productivity of students,
Deputy Director, ISBS. “With Live@edu, we faculties and staff,” says Santosh Kumar.
can handle our growing demand for Web-
based communication services—without the Greater Storage
worry of service, space, or liability issues.” According to one of the student at the
institute, “I really appreciate the free online
The university made the decision to deploy storage available with Windows Live SkyDrive.
Live@edu in August 2009 and all existing It can be used to store papers and access
accounts were migrated in September 2009. them from any location.”
However, implementation and expansion of
Live@edu for users is still going on. Windows Live SkyDrive provides students
with 25 GB of free online storage. This can be
used to store, access and share files with
Benefits friends or classmates, from anywhere online.
The suite of integrated, Web-based services
provides a framework for cohesive Reduced Maintenance
communications among students, and Compared with our existing system, Microsoft
between students and faculty. Since Live@edu is virtually maintenance free. Once
deploying Microsoft Live@edu, SCES is the service is up and running, there’s very
enjoying the benefits of a reliable, hosted e- little to do.
mail solution with a familiar user interface.

4. “Microsoft takes care of costly, labor-
intensive hosting and storage,” says Santosh
Kumar. “It adds up to a significant budget
reduction for a much superior service. The
bottom line is, with Microsoft Live@edu, we
can better provide hosted Web mail and
online collaboration services for our students,
while saving money.”
Staying Connected
Live@edu increases the ability of students,
faculties and staff to communicate and
collaborate with a suite of online tools,
including shared calendars, documents, and
workspaces. It keeps students and faculty
connected anywhere with online access on
virtually any web-enabled device, and equip
students for the real world.
“Students are excited about the reliability of
the new e-mail service, which helps them stay
in touch with their professors,” says Janardan
Pawar. “This service gives students, staff, and
faculty the power to choose how they
communicate and collaborate with the people
and communities around them.”

5. For More Information Microsoft Live@edu
For more information about Microsoft The Microsoft Live@edu program provides
products and services, call the Microsoft institutions of higher education and K-12 with
Sales Information Center at (800) a set of free hosted and cobranded
426-9400. In Canada, call the Microsoft collaboration and communication services for
Canada Information Centre at (877) students, alumni, and applicants. Offerings
568-2495. Customers who are deaf or include a choice of Windows Live Hotmail or
hard-of-hearing can reach Microsoft text Microsoft Exchange Labs for e-mail, and
telephone (TTY/TDD) services at (800) Microsoft Office Live Workspace, an online
892-5234 in the United States or (905) space to collaborate on Microsoft Office
568-9641 in Canada. Outside the 50 documents.
United States and Canada, please contact
your local Microsoft subsidiary. To access For more information about Live@edu, go to:
information using the World Wide Web, go get.liveatedu.com
to: www.microsoft.com
For more information about Shree
Chanakya Education Society, visit the Web
site at: http://indiraedu.com
Software and Services Hardware
 Microsoft Windows Server 2003, 2008  Server: Intel Xeon Processor 3.0Ghz, 2GB
 Microsoft Office 2003, 2007 RAM, 160GB Hard Disk with Software RAID
 Microsoft Live@edu  Desktop: Intel Core 2 Duo 2.45Ghz,
512MB RAM, 80GB SATA Hard Disk
(7200rpm)