As for 2, I'm currently studying at a university that this occurred in, I'm not sure if it was the same one, however mine was in the north east of England. One

As for 2, I'm currently studying at a university that this occurred in, I'm not sure if it was the same one, however mine was in the north east of England. One of the reasons that was given (and which I felt was totally reasonable in this case) was that Microsoft provided assurances that the university could manage their own data, and none of it would ever leave the UK - something which Google couldn't do. This was pre-Snowden, however I suspect that this was a big reason why Microsoft was chosen over Google.