OUR VIEWS Consensus Opinion

The Office of Information Technology (OIT) will be replacing the current SPECTRUM webmail service with a new system powered by Zimbra. Students can look forward to the rollout of the new system next spring.

The system, with its similarity to more advanced clients like the new Yahoo! Mail and Gmail, will launch Tech web services into the Web 2.0 revolution, and it is encouraging to see the Institute move to modernize its systems. SPECTRUM has clearly begun to show its age, and while its simplicity has a certain charm it is noticeably behind in functionality.

The choice of Zimbra has left a number of people scratching their heads, however, as there was little awareness beforehand of OIT's plans to replace the webmail system. While a number of students were indeed surveyed, it is strange that the system was selected without more involvement from the student body.

Nevertheless, the features included in the software promise to bring a little excitement back to webmail at Tech and make it hard to truly question the selection. With useful tools like integrated calendar functionality and improved contact management, the system should make everyone's webmail experience more pleasant. The calendaring functionality should prove particularly useful for student organizations, which will be able to easily share a calendar among all members and use it to schedule meetings and events. It is also encouraging to see Tech continue to support open source software.

As OIT moves closer to campus-wide rollout, however, there are a few concerns. The recent rollout of T-Square, based on the highly-lauded open source package Sakai, has hit a number of rough spots. While the WebCT replacement is certainly important, it pales in comparison to the critical nature of an email service. Students will not tolerate hijinks in their webmail client, and Zimbra must prove to be consistent and dependable.

At the same time, it is crucial to provide students an easy transition path from SPECTRUM to the new system. Users who currently make use of the address book and extensive mail filtering should not have to reconfigure all of their settings once the switchover happens, nor should any messages or folders be lost in the process..

Finally, it is important to continue providing users with multiple email options. OIT has announced that SPECTRUM will continue to operate through the end of the spring semester, but some would like to see the old system online indefinitely alongside the new application. The simpler SPECTRUM features better cross-browser capability and will run on older PCs that may struggle with the desktop-like Zimbra interface.