One of the main problems behind getting the universities to switch is because of how heavily invested they are in a product. For example, I go to Penn State and they have a whole team around supporting our system (Angel). Penn State even modifies the code base to support our school specifically so they would never switch over after all the time/money invested. But good luck, I never even go on Angel anymore because I hate it so much.
I go to pennstate as well and I completely agree with you on this. I hate angel because it sucks.
I am a part of a startup Watermelon Express and we are developing a platform Web/Desktop/Mobile which syncs, has chat rooms, secure system and content. Even if the universities don't accept it as a universal platform, we are hoping students will use it because of the convenience factor. It is not mentioned anywhere on our website, because it is still 2-3 months away from beta launch.
I almost did something similar to this during this past year. Perhaps we could have a chat when school starts up again in the fall and I could tell you about some of the things I found.
One of the ways we're tackling this is by letting teachers use Classlet without needing their institution to support it. Any teacher can hop on and start using classlet immediately, which is great because I've never met a teacher who likes their universities' current solution.
