Unix based system
 

I don't know how techie you guys are but I'm doing some research into this subject (and I'm not a computer science-y person at all) and I'm hoping one of you guys could help me. And there might not be anything to do this at all; it could be a dead-end. I've read the Wikipedia article on this and that hasn't really helped.

My school recently told us that they were moving from a unix-based system (I'm going to assume it's for things like e-mail) to a Google Apps Email accounts which has a lot of variety of features such as more storage, use of Google other applications, etc.

Basically, what I want to know is why they would cause such a switch like this? Phrased differently, what are the inherent weaknesses or lack of capabilities about a unix-based system? Or, what is the benefit to outsourcing a school's e-mail system?

Thanks for your help. Sorry if I'm confusing. If you can't tell, I really have no idea what's going on.... @_@

It probably means that they won't have to deal with their own, actual servers any more. It'll save on having some guy on call to handle outages and stuff. Instead of upgrading/buying new equipment, they can let Google handle the brunt of that.