Microsoft Outlook Accounts Migrate to Gmail

Google seems to have landed a big-ticket contract for issuing Gmail accounts to some 1.3-million students in schools in Australia. Which also means Gmail accounts will now oust existing Microsoft Outlook or Exchange accounts of these students.

The three-years contract is worth nearly $9.5 million; Google, in partnership with SMS Management & Technology and Telstra, will supply the New South Wales (NSW) Department of Education a customized Gmail version that bundles Google Apps. With this contract, Google has succeeded in migrating Microsoft Outlook/Exchange users to its Google Applications and Gmail. For the NSW Department of Education, it's a win-win as the existing Microsoft Outlook/Exchange system costed a bomb, i.e. $33 million.

The other big story is that an upstart named LimitNone (start-up) has sued Google for allegedly 'copying' their email switching tool. LimitNone has alleged that while it shared trade secrets of its email switching tool (gMove) with Google engineers, sales executives, customers, Google quietly went and developed an 'almost identical' tool, subsequently jumping into the fray itself.

Will Gmail Get Themes?

A source is telling me that Gmail will get themes – custom layouts to personalize Google’s web mail client. According to the source, the launch of this may happen within the next months. There will be 12 themes to pick from, according to this information, like a black-and-green “terminal” view, as well as a flowery view.

Already, using third-party tools like Greasemonkey or custom user stylesheets, you are able to add skins to Gmail... but officially, you can only toggle Gmail views like mobile, classic HTML, or normal.More>>