Say goodbye to the anachronistic e-mail service that once monopolized your MyUW experience.

On Sept. 28, students were extended the option of swapping their archaic WebPine or Web Alpine services for systems offered by providers Microsoft and Google.

“We’re providing state-of-the-art personal productivity and collaboration tools for the university community,” said Colleen Butler, project manager for UW Technology. “The vendors have many developers working on enhancing and rolling out new services, and we should rely on their capabilities and expertise.”

Students can select either the newly dubbed UW Windows Live Mail or UW Google Apps to send and receive messages. When those companies compete, the UW reaps the reward.

“It’s a dual-vendor strategy from the beginning, so we get the benefits of a little bit of competition between them,” said Scott Mah, UW Technology’s associate vice president for technology services. “Each vendor has its strength, so this allows individuals to choose the one to best meet their needs.”

James Harmon, a UW junior and student lead e-mail analyst for UW Technology, was among a group that piloted the new e-mail. Finding endless improvements upon the UW’s centralized system, Harmon permanently swapped it for the Microsoft product.

“Both [providers] offer significantly more storage. Both offer the ability to share documents,” Harmon said. “They’re considered online drives for online storage space.”

The extra storage is a colossal upgrade from the skeletal in-house system count of 300 megabytes. With Microsoft’s system, 10 gigabytes are available to fill with messages and photos, and more than seven gigabytes amp the Google inbox.

Plus, with UW Windows Live Mail, users receive Outlook Live — the latest version of exchange e-mail — integrated messaging, Windows Live Spaces — an online work space ideal for collaborations with class groups and photo sharing — and SkyDrive, 25 gigabytes of online file storage. Google wrapped their application suite in the UW logo, extending Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs and Google Talk to students.

“All students will have the opportunity to use both,” Butler explained. “However, you do need to select one to have your e-mail delivered to.”

Students still use their UW e-mail addresses to access the new services, which are cost-free and ad-free.

Later in the quarter, the technology staff plans to roll out the same e-mail services to staff and faculty. But Mah foresees a potential dilemma involving medical school employees, who have certain obligations to secure patient confidentiality. With WebPine and Web Alpine, controls are in place to protect the data that aren’t guaranteed by the corporations.

“We have to make sure our vendors adhere to those same guidelines,” Mah said. “The way we do that is through contractual obligations. [Then] we’re able to negotiate those terms and conditions so they’re following the same rules and regulation as the university.”

Mah said they hope to have the contract situation resolved this fall.

And, when e-mail once expired following a two-quarter plus 10-day inactivity, the new system permits users to log in long after they’ve logged out of the UW.

“You can take it with you when you go,” Butler said. “You’ll continue to use the same service indefinitely as you graduate.”

Reach Lifestyles Editor Rachel Solomon at news@dailyuw.com.