A little bit of background information is in order for this.
Cornell provides students with an email service that has been hosted and maintained here on campus since the early 1990s. Currently, many incoming students arrive with at least one email account that is hosted by a third party (family ISP, Yahoo, Google, MSN, etc.). These email accounts are provided at little or no cost to the user. Cornell has allowed students to route their Cornell addressed email to these personal accounts, and many thousands of students do. Others prefer to segregate their personal and university-related messages.
In light of these new usage patterns and the capability of the dominant service providers to offer more in the way of services, including storage and bundling email with productivity tools, Cornell is exploring the option of negotiating with a third party to provide Student Personal Productivity Services.
