Polytechnic of Zagreb wanted to replace its aging email system with a full-featured communication and collaboration platform. It chose to deploy Microsoft Live@edu to its faculty, staff, and students. The polytechnic is saving U.S.$300,000 on hardware, software, and administration, and faculty and associates have access to a robust suite of tools that helps the school run more smoothly and prepares students for future careers. 

Business Needs
Polytechnic of Zagreb is Croatia’s oldest and largest polytechnic, providing more than 5,000 students with undergraduate and graduate programs in engineering, computing, and information technologies. The mission of the school’s 100 faculty members and associates is to prepare students for successful jobs in technical industries after graduation. In addition to its standard programs, Polytechnic of Zagreb hosts the NetAkademija (NetAcademy), which offers lifelong continuing education and certification programs for IT professionals.

With Live@edu, we communicate more efficiently, and daily operations function better than ever. The system blocks almost all spam and viruses, and users can access their data from anywhere. Slaven Crnjac Head of Microsoft & PHP Education for NetAkademija,

Although Polytechnic of Zagreb trains students on the latest IT developments, the school’s own communication infrastructure was not meeting the demands of modern education. The school ran an aging email solution on a single Linux server, with no online collaboration capabilities and poor virus and spam protection. “The system was slow, mailbox sizes were limited, and students had trouble connecting to the service,” says Slaven Crnjac, Head of Microsoft and PHP Education for NetAkademija at Polytechnic of Zagreb. “Many students avoided the school’s system altogether by forwarding all of their messages to an external service like Windows Live Hotmail, so there were numerous problems with things like informing students about changes in class schedules.”

In 2009, Polytechnic of Zagreb decided to replace its unsatisfactory email system with a more modern, full-featured messaging platform that would be both cost-effective and easy for its IT staff of five employees to maintain. The polytechnic also wanted to provide students with experience using the sort of modern communication and collaboration tools that they would later use in the business world.

Solution
In mid-2009, the school began a six-month evaluation of two solutions: Microsoft Live@edu and Google Apps for Education. Live@edu is a set of free*, hosted communication and collaboration services for students, staff, and alumni. The school began by examining system implementation processes and the ease of integrating the prospective solutions with existing client applications and services, including some open source and Linux-based systems that the school uses as part of the country’s academic technology network.

Along with deployment and compatibility issues, the school looked at the range of available features, and Live@edu was the clear winner with 10-gigabyte mailboxes, access to Windows Live Messenger and Microsoft Office Web Apps, 25 gigabytes of storage through Windows Live SkyDrive, and access to the Microsoft Outlook Live messaging and collaboration client. “Students can use SkyDrive and Office Web Apps to easily share and collaborate on documents,” says Crnjac. “And using Outlook Live prepares them to work in one of the many businesses that use Microsoft Outlook. The Live@edu components also work seamlessly with Microsoft Office 2007 and Microsoft Office 2010, which are important applications at the school. When we tested Google Apps, the client integration was not good.”

Cost, security, and accessibility were also factors in the school’s decision to deploy Live@edu. “Security is very strong, and it offers great tools for eliminating spam and viruses,” notes Crnjac. “We also like that students and teachers can access the system from anywhere in the world on a variety of devices, and that Live@edu offers accounts for all users at no cost.”

Polytechnic of Zagreb began its Live@edu deployment with a small-scale implementation for testing and it yielded very satisfactory results. The school followed this with a year-long pilot program for 60 users in the NetAkademija. In May 2011, the school began rolling out Live@edu to the rest of its users.

“As of June 2011, all of our faculty, staff, and students are on Live@edu, and new students receive a Live@edu account when they enroll,” says Crnjac. “Live@edu offers tools to transfer old email from IMAP accounts, and they have worked perfectly for us. We appreciate the strong calendar and resource sharing features in Outlook, and we will use them to improve class scheduling and the reservation system for meeting rooms, vehicles, and other resources.”

Benefits
By moving to Live@edu, Polytechnic of Zagreb has saved money, simplified system administration, and given its students and staff a powerful suite of modern business communication and collaboration tools.

Significant Cost Savings
Polytechnic of Zagreb expects to save U.S.$300,000 over the next three years with Live@edu. “We have decreased power consumption, reduced the need for software licenses, and eliminated hardware requirements for running our own email system,” says Crnjac. “Live@edu can be administered part-time by one person, and we are using the money we are saving to educate teachers on new technologies.”

A Powerful Communication and Collaboration Platform
The school is excited by the ways in which staff and students can work better together. “We are very happy to have such a secure and feature-rich system,” says Crnjac. “With Live@edu, we communicate more efficiently, and daily operations function better than ever. The system blocks almost all spam and viruses, and users can access their data from anywhere.”

Real-World Business Tools for Students
Polytechnic of Zagreb is excited to give their students valuable experience with the technology that they will use when they join the workforce. “During their studies, they learn how to use online collaboration tools and work with each other,” says Crnjac. “They learn how to effectively communicate with colleagues on projects, and they become proficient with the latest Microsoft products. We believe this is great preparation for their future careers.”

For more information about other Microsoft customer successes, please visit:
www.microsoft.com/casestudies

*Access to and use of the Internet may require payment of a separate fee to an Internet service provider. Local and/or long-distance telephone charges may apply.