Furman University in Greenville South Carolina began moving to Microsoft Office 365, a hosted Microsoft Exchange solution in March. The move has been slow and methodical according to information given out to students, faculty, staff and posted on the Furman website.
The move has not been without pain I am sure, as right off the bat, in March, over 2100 student email accounts were transitioned and all through this summer break, more accounts were moved.
Furman’s website gives a timeline for completion which looks like this:
September 28, 2012 – last day for new email to be sent or received by their former mail solution (FirstClass). They will be disabling the web access to that old system, though their FirstClass mail client will still be able to get to the old resources.
October 15, 2012 – Last day for faculty and staff to request that email be exported from old mail system
December 12, 2012 – Old mail system will be turned off completely.
In addition, Furman’s website also states that, “Moving to Office365 is a large, complicated project, and it is the major focus for ITS service improvements in 2012. Microsoft Office365 and MyFurman will help provide Furman with a virtual environment that reflects and advances the high quality of our academic program and physical campus. Our thanks to all who are helping with the transition. Thanks also for your patience and support as we work to improve Furman’s information technology services.”
What is Microsoft Office 365? Office 365 is an online subscription service that provides email, shared calendars, the ability to create and edit documents online, along with instant messaging, web conferencing and a public website for your business and internal team sites — all accessible anywhere from nearly any device!
Considering a switch to a cloud based email solution? Give us a call at 864.990.4748 or use the CONTACT link in our navigation menu above to arrange for a free consultation. As your Upstate (Greenville, Spartanburg, Anderson) SC Microsoft partner, we can help you move 1 user or 50,000 to a hosted Microsoft Office 365 solution! How about a free trial for your company? We can make that happen too…