With more and more universities outsourcing student e-mail to large-scale companies such as Google and Microsoft, we're left wondering why Geneseo hasn't followed in these technologically appropriate footsteps.
According to an article on the Time Magazine Web site, programs such as Gmail now manage e-mails for more than 2,000 colleges and universities.
It's a smart choice: the Google program offers 7370 MB of data to be stored, compared to Webmail's measly 100 MB of storage. Why should you constantly be deleting e-mails to make room for yet another "What's Up" notification when you could keep everything, neatly organized, in one account?
True, Computing and Information Technology has been looking into programs offered by mainstream companies - but they're also spending valuable resources trying to improve a system that needs to be eliminated. Time and money spent on upgrades for Webmail could have been avoided by taking advantage of the free programs offered by Google and Microsoft.
Webmail is also an outdated program, and regardless of efforts taken to revitalize the system, it is highly unlikely that our SUNY technology will surpass the genius of Google. Gmail includes features such as colored labels that automatically attach to e-mail received by specific senders; a chat-like viewing of related messages, making organization easier than managing several separate replies and the option to "star" important e-mails that need an attention-grabbing effect. Although Webmail provides similar features, it is much harder to obtain these through a combination of "Settings" as opposed to clicking a few well-marked buttons provided by knowledgeable Gmail creators.
Along with that, as a growing number of high school students are using these free Gmail accounts, it is most convenient for them to continue using what they are familiar with as they move on to college. The change from a universally convenient e-mail account to a college-specific one is unnecessarily confusing.
It's not every day that one is encouraged to "follow the crowd" and take the "easy way out" of a situation. In this circumstance, however, Geneseo's smartest choice would be following this ingenious trend by turning our campus e-mail system over to Internet professionals and allowing them to manage our accounts; something they clearly already know how to do.