Ohio University's conversion to Catmail for student e-mail accounts, which was slated to begin tomorrow, has been delayed after officials decided there was not enough time to make the shift smoothly.
We just didn't have enough time; we set ourselves a tight time line
said Sean O'Malley, the Office of Information Technology's communications manager. We did not feel confident that the roll out would go as smoothly as we want it to.
Under Catmail, graduate student e-mail accounts would remain in-house as staff accounts and OIT was not sure it could make the change without interfering with finals week, O'Malley said.
There is nothing at issue with the service itself O'Malley said.
Catmail, the name for the new e-mail service selected by students in an online survey, boasts increased storage capacity that will allow for larger attachments and is searchable. The Microsoft system will replace the university's current Oak e-mail.
OU considered outsourcing student e-mail accounts to both Microsoft and Google, ultimately deciding on the Microsoft service because it agreed not to sell student data to advertisers. The conversion to Catmail will save OU about $96,000 a year, according to O'Malley.
OIT has yet to decide when the switch will occur, but the new e-mail client is expected to be in place by the summer at the latest.
We'd rather have people mad that we teased them then to have tried to make the switch when we weren't ready O'Malley said.
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Wesley Lowery
