All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) have announced that they will deploy Microsoft’s Live@edu to more than 10,000 technical colleges and institutions, across the nation over the next three months. This initiative would make AICTE Microsoft's largest cloud customer ever for a total of 7.5 million users. Live@edu is a hosted communication and collaboration service that offers e-mail, Microsoft Office Web Apps, instant messaging and storage. Microsoft Office 365 will also be deployed by AICTE when it is made available later this year, providing access to Microsoft Exchange Online e-mail and calendar, Microsoft SharePoint Online, Microsoft Lync Online and Microsoft Office Professional.
"Microsoft's cloud platform will make for a truly progressive ecosystem and contribute to the country's technical education by providing a better communication and collaboration platform for institutes and students," said Dr. S. S. Mantha, Chairman of AICTE. The All India Council for Technical Education is a governing body for technical education in India, certifying and managing technical colleges and institutes and it requires to have timely and consistent communication with colleges in the remotest regions. They’ve been looking to deploy a technology system that would provide an efficient platform for students and the institutional framework.
"Microsoft's commitment to empower students by deploying Microsoft Live@edu for 7.5 million users across the country with AICTE is commendable and a step towards an informed and developing India. I congratulate both AICTE and Microsoft on this significant milestone," said Mr. Kapil Sibal, Union Minister for HRD .
"We are delighted with the confidence posed by AICTE in Microsoft. Microsoft has always seen education as a priority area and believes that technology offers possibilities that can help empower not just teachers and students but collectively India as a nation," said Sanket Akerkar, Managing Director, Microsoft Corporation India Private Limited. The complete deployment will be seen by summer 2012. Live@edu, a cloud suite for education has more than 22 million people using the service worldwide. The implementation of the service by AICTE is underway, already and has been managed by Microsoft and a set of Live@edu partners.