Google Apps Education Edition helps attract solution providers

Back in May, Microsoft began offering hosted Exchange on college campuses through its Live@edu service — a move some saw as a direct response to Google’s success in the higher education market. Yahoo is also pushing to entrench its Zimbra email and collaboration desktop in higher ed. It’s part of an overall trend toward hosted email services on college campuses, Laczynski said.

“We’re seeing interest in this space in general and specifically with Google Apps,” he said. “There’s a lot of excitement. … These are students that are used to Gmail. They love Google. They’re used to hosted services. They’re not corporate email users.”

I spoke with Colin Steele, from TechTarget, earlier this week  regarding the opportunities for solution providers working with Google Apps in the Education space.   It is truly an exciting time to be involved in a transitional technology wave.  Hosted and cloud-based services are the way things are going, and Google Apps is a great example of a real world case.  We’ve seen so much great interest from colleges, universities, and school districts around the country.