While some of my colleagues contemplate that email is no longer the killer app, it apparently is still significant enough to be a strategic effort of Google and Microsoft efforts to capture college students as adversting customers by providing life-long email.. It remains to be seen how many college and unviersities will embrace a "partnership" with Microsoft or Google, but I can see benefits and issues either way, especially as it relates to the overall birth-to-bequest strategy that is so important for higher education institutions. Outsourcing a killer app that reduces or affects negatively an institutions ability to foster and engage Alumni could have significant long term ramifications. This bares watching. Here's another article on topic from CIO magazine.