Under-funded and neglected for years, UCL’s email and calendaring services have been pushed to the point that they are “either failing, or in danger of failing”, and are “increasingly difficult and expensive to maintain”. Rather than invest £1 million in a new in-house system, College is now looking to make short-term savings by outsourcing to Microsoft, who have offered three years’ service for free. But just how good an offer is this, and how risky is it for UCL to place its trust in the virtual monopoly that is Microsoft?
The ‘free’ service, known as Live@UCL, provides a Hotmail-style email account and Outlook calendaring. It is under the direct control of Microsoft, so any problems will have to be dealt with via the company’s own staff. The contents of inboxes and calendars are currently stored in Ireland, but could be moved to any country within the European Economic Area on a whim. Any files uploaded onto the ‘Live Spaces’ and ‘Skydrive’ provided as part of Live@UCL are not guaranteed to be secure and are stored in the United States, beyond the reaches of the Data Protection Act.
Interestingly, one motivation for UCL to outsource is that it would prefer to have all staff actively use the same calendaring service – that way, College can report to the Home Office that it is ‘tracking and monitoring’ non-EU staff according to immigration law. While most staff who currently use calendaring prefer Oracle Calendar, the outsourcing means they will all be forced to move to Outlook.
And what of the deal itself? Microsoft is well known for ‘end-loading’ contracts by providing a ‘free’ service and then charging once the customer is hooked. While UCL claims that Microsoft’s commercial rates are comparable to the cost of running in-house email and calendaring services, the potential charges once the honeymoon is over are as yet unknown.
So what if Microsoft does start charging? Surely UCL can just take everything back in-house? Unfortunately, migrating from one email system to another would cost UCL around £250,000 – this would be the penalty for terminating the contract with Microsoft. Combine this with the inevitable drain of in-house knowledge once the service is outsourced, and UCL is liable to stick with the contract regardless.
No Such Thing As A Free Launch
The deal is in fact a coup for Microsoft. Not only has the company been given carte blanche when it comes to charging for the service in three years’ time, but UCL will become dependent on Microsoft software regardless of whether the contract continues. Furthermore, UCL will act as an advertisement for other universities, helping Microsoft to forge ahead with a new monopoly. It is telling that Cambridge University, when offered a free service not for three years but ‘for life’, turned Microsoft down.