Universities in the UK will face less legally challenging and expensive Google Apps rollouts following an agreement between the company and Janet, an organisation which provides network infrastructure and services to educational institutions in the UK.
The agreement, signed at Google’s London offices, will mean that the IT managers and CIOs of all UK universities will all have access to one framework agreement when signing off Google Apps rollouts, instead of having to create their own bespoke contracts.
Liz Sproat, head of education for Google EMEA, said universities "can now move forward with confidence that an independent body has reviewed the agreement with Google, to make sure that your interests are being covered."
She also added that this initial signing of the agreement was just the beginning of wider co-operation between Google and UK universities and colleges, one third of which already have a Google Apps deployment.
In order to gain access to the documents, universities would pay a fee of £500, significantly less than the cost of legal fees, when carrying out due diligence to ensure all legal obstacles are negotiated prior to a rollout.
