It's hard to understand the power of the software unless you see it in action. We implemented it in our system last month and people are amazed at what it has done to open avenues of communication and build online community, something I have been working at for three years. It is entirely accurate to say that in one month is has done more to change the culture of our school than all I have done in the past three years. Aside from Email, you can customize it and set up conferences, projects, classes, portfolios, group calendars, resource calendars, equipment calendars, chats and more. It has five levels of security and permissions.
Different groups can have different types of access to different types of objects.
If our schools were to burn down to the ground and leave the server behind, we could still carry on education via Internet connections to the homes of the students and teachers. There are currently 400 staff users. Eventually we will bring on all students and the number will be 4000. In other words, almost no two people will see the same FirstClass desktop. Jeff was correct about the Internet gateway.