Microsoft on Wednesday announced 16 new education and government customers, including Portland Public Schools in Oregon; the City of Alexandria, Virginia; Colorado's Department of Labor and Employment; and the City of Carlsbad, California.

Portland's 5,000 faculty and staff will start using Microsoft's Live@edu service this year and 46,000 students will get access to it shortly after, Microsoft said. Live@edu is an email and collaboration service for schools.

The district is replacing an aging Novell GroupWise system and expects to save money and enhance the relationship between teachers and students, said Nick Jwayad, CIO of Portland Public Schools.

In a press release, Microsoft crowed that Portland Public Schools and University of Albany -- SUNY had chosen Microsoft over Google Apps. It also said that Winston-Salem, North Carolina, is migrating its 600 Google Apps business users and 2,150 Novell GroupWise users onto Microsoft's Business Process Online Suite.

BPOS is Microsoft's hosted services offering that includes Exchange, Sharepoint and Office Live Meeting.