According to Microsoft, QUT joins "thousands of institutions around the world" by moving to the platform, but the news of such deals has been mostly of Google's equivalent offering, including a recent .
The Live@edu suite of online applications includes Microsoft Outlook Live, Microsoft Office Live Workspace and SkyDrive for storage.
QUT evaluated a hosted, Web-based e-mail solution for students when existing email infrastructure "reached its limit of functionality and storage capacity".
So much for in-house IT expenditure.
According to Microsoft, the decision to go with Live@edu is the result of discussions among students, university administration and company representatives, and the deal included an opt-in trial involving students from the Faculty of Information Technology.