Microsoft signs Portland Public Schools as cloud customer

Portland Public Schools has signed on as a Microsoft customer of the Live@edu cloud computing service.

The service will replace Novell GroupWise software, which the school district is now running on its own servers. Live@edu will provide e-mail for 8,500 faculty and staff and high school students in the fall, Microsoft said today. The service and e-mails are stored in Microsoft's data centers and accessed by students and faculty via the Internet.

Both Google and Microsoft bid on the contract, Microsoft said.

Providing cloud services for public agencies is an area of intense competition right now, with announcements about new customers and lawsuits flying back and forth.

In January, Microsoft sued former employee Matthew Miszewski, who sold software and services to government customers, for taking what Microsoft said was a similar job at competitor Salesforce.com.

Google recently sued the U.S. Department of the Interior for choosing Microsoft, saying the agency had failed to fairly consider Google's competing bid. In January, a federal judge ordered the department to further investigate and evaluate its options.

Update 4:30 p.m.

Google spokeswoman Kat Eller said she couldn't confirm whether the company had bid for the contract that Microsoft won with the Portland Public Schools.

Google already has an agreement with Oregon state's department of education since May to provide Google Apps to schools, Heller said. Google Apps includes e-mail and other Web-based applications, such as word processing and spreadsheets.

"It?s not exclusive, but we have had a statewide agreement for almost a year now," Eller said.

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