June 21, 2010, Toronto, Canada – Messageware (www.messageware.com), the world’s leading provider of enterprise productivity, security and customization solutions for Microsoft Office Outlook Web Access and Outlook Web App (OWA), today announced that Oxford University, the oldest university in the English-speaking world, and a leader in learning, teaching and research, has selected Messageware CalendarShare and Messageware Plus Pack solutions for Microsoft Exchange Server 2007. These solutions are now being used by 40,000 staff and students at Oxford with an additional 5,000 users planned for the Fall.
Early in 2008, Oxford decided to deploy Exchange 2007 and OWA and, in the process, consolidate many different open source calendaring and messaging solutions. This decision was intended to streamline inter-departmental communication across the University, simplifying collaboration
To further increase collaboration, the organization made a decision to allow all of their users to access email via OWA, both on and off-site. Approximately 20,000 of these users are relying on OWA solely for email access. However, in the organization’s planning, they did not consider disparities between Internet browsers. Almost 60% of Oxford users are using a browser other than Internet Explorer and receive OWA Light. Shortly after deployment, they began to receive complaints, mainly from individuals using Firefox, Safari, and Chrome, about the inability to see other calendar views and share their calendars from within OWA.
Their search to make OWA Light look and function more like the IE-OWA version and Outlook eventually led Oxford to Messageware and their CalendarShare 2007 and Plus Pack 2007 solutions. According to Paul Davis, a member of the Nexus Team for Oxford University Computer Services (OUCS), since the deployment, criticism has been significantly reduced. “With Messageware we can deliver a similar experience to all of our students and staff regardless of what browser they are using.”
With Plus Pack and CalendarShare the OWA Light user experience is significantly improved. For the first time, users have access to many of the features that were previously only available with Internet Explorer, such as the ability to see daily, weekly and monthly calendars views, simplified scheduling, calendar delegate permissions, new mail notifications and more.
“We work with hundreds of organizations worldwide who, at one time or another, have shared the same challenges that Oxford has experienced,” said Mark Rotman, President & CEO of Messageware. “The larger and more tech-savvy an organization is, the more likely they are to have a high number of individuals using non-IE browsers. It is incumbent upon the IT department to deliver a consistent and fully featured user experience. Today, we are the only company that is able to bridge that gap for OWA.”