Space wars: Hotmail will give 250MB email storage for free!

The competition is a great thing. Thanks google

More details from the press release:

"The changes will start early in July"

"All current Hotmail extra storage subscribers worldwide will be upgraded to MSN Hotmail Plus when it launches globally later this summer, Microsoft said. MSN Premium subscribers will also receive those added storage benefits later this year"

I was about to post this.

Shining Arcanine wrote:

I was about to post this.

Sorry.

BruceLee wrote:

30 day expire if no activity (like hotmail free! is today)

What annoys me a little bit is that using Outlook to handle Hotmail doesn't count. If I don't log in with a web browser for 30 days my account is killed. Even though I use it on a daily basis through Outlook.

/Lars.

Good move. but... Still Microsoft has just reacted to a competitive thread rather than innovating in the first place. Instead of moving first as the corporation which clearly has the economic potential to create new services that assist users, it has only and lately responded to competition as was inevitable anyway.
Even the offer of 250 mb falls far short from the 1 gb that is offered by Google. The important thing though is that Google, from what I gather, has a much better, simpler interface, which makes searching and sorting through your e-mails extremely easy. This cannot be matched by Hotmail's currently mostly non-existent search facilities.
Even the array of services that Yahoo! and others offer are not available on MSN. Where is the briefcase online storage for example on MSN? Where is the News search, Newsgroups search, MP3 and video search, prices comparisons, calendar, favorites and notes storage facilities? Where is an innovative MSN Toolbar and not the current toolbar that only tries to imitate Google? Or an IE Search Bar which would intelligently gather info from all search engines?
MSN does not even integrate with Microsoft products, which might have been its strongest point. Instead look what happens: Hotmail address book cannot be easily synchronized with Outlook XP and other e-mail clients' address books, MSN Calendar the same, notes and other Outlook features are not even available on MSN and there is no easy way to upload files on the web.  Whilst, synchronization between MSN Services and offline software should have been automatic.

I'm an MSN Premium subscriber and I have 25 MB today, but I rarely use more than 10. So I don't need more than 25 MB in email (I like to move the messages from Hotmail to folders on my computer). So, I'd rather use 2GB storage space instead of the current 30 MB on MSN Groups than as email space... Anyone knows whether MSN Groups will get new space limits?

PS: Maybe Google just bluffed about their new gMail (), but the competition works even if that would be true!

BruceLee wrote:

Shining Arcanine wrote: I was about to post this.

Sorry.

No problem.

i gotta agree with Nektar ( above - full post)

how is this "LEADING" in any way

1 quarter the space of gmail
quadruple the ads

disappointed

MS should have gone for terrabyte free ( though no one would use that)
then move to be more of a data storage system
photos etc with NO ads - and no 30 day detetion if you want to pay

jamie wrote:

i gotta agree with Nektar ( above - full post)

how is this "LEADING" in any way

1 quarter the space of gmail
quadruple the ads

disappointed

MS should have gone for terrabyte free ( though no one would use that)
then move to be more of a data storage system
photos etc with NO ads - and no 30 day detetion if you want to pay

while I think they should have been more generous in terms of space and attachment sizes, I do not agree with you. That is going overboard and could kill the free service as it would likely lose money.

i was mainly trying to say.. this is so "catch-up"

i was hoping MS would have made googles offer seem like peanuts:   " a gig free eh?  we laugh at your pitiful gig.here's _insert nutty number here_"

i think they needed to BLOW away google - not FAIL to offer what they will

jamie wrote:

MS should have gone for terrabyte free ( though no one would use that)
then move to be more of a data storage system
photos etc with NO ads - and no 30 day detetion if you want to pay

They could just as well have made it one Tb. Or ten. Or a gazillion. What's important is how much of that space is actually used. I'm sure someone can figure out a way to make some good use of GMails' full Gb. But I don't think the average user will find 250Mb, or even 100Mb too constraining. Above that it's more about marketing. One must also remember that Google isn't just giving away more space because they want to be nice. More storage space equals more material to mine data from. Which leads to better value for the advertisers. The really good thing is that their competition has now made Hotmail alot more usable. Abit ironic really.

It would probably be hard to eliminate ads from the free version of Hotmail. I suspect that is what pays the bills. On the other hand I think it goes without saying that paying customers should be spared that crap. The 30 day timeout is very annoying. Microsoft could give its Outlook customers (who are paying already) the benefit of not having to worry about the timeout if they use Outlook as their frontend. Logging in once every 30 days can't give that much extra advertising revenue. Come to think of it, I bet someone already have made a script.

/Lars.

What about the one service that even subscibed members do not get access to, the calendar. Its constantly dangled in my face and I want to use it, but bugger ms if im gonna pay even more. especially for an internet browser replacement, for one that i already have for free.

The only report that touched on calendar was from the pro ms winsupersite, but no one else mentioned it which leaves me wondering.

The calendar should be free, how else is ms going to sync the desktop calendar in longhorn with an online one.

samuel

lars wrote:

It would probably be hard to eliminate ads from the free version of Hotmail. I suspect that is what pays the bills. On the other hand I think it goes without saying that paying customers should be spared that crap. The 30 day timeout is very annoying. Microsoft could give its Outlook customers (who are paying already) the benefit of not having to worry about the timeout if they use Outlook as their frontend. Logging in once every 30 days can't give that much extra advertising revenue. Come to think of it, I bet someone already have made a script.

I agree that the 30 day limit should be reset upon logging in via Outlook.

By the way, I just checked. Google terminates GMail accounts that have been inactive for 9 months...

moofish wrote:

The calendar should be free, how else is ms going to sync the desktop calendar in longhorn with an online one.

samuel

I agree the calendar should be free, maybe the basic features only and that's enough for me.

About the space, I think once customers start to use these GB size spaces (better free) the way they use email will change. Nowaday customers are used to drag their emails to local storage or delete them. But with GB size spaces they will leave more emails on servers and send bigger emails to each. The customer's behavior will change.

I've had a 200MB inbox for over a year and my usage of it hasn't changed from my first inbox that I had through AOL (my first ISP; ironically it was also the worse ISP I ever had).

That doesn't mean that the ability send/receive large (100MB and over) attachments isn't nice to have.

Maybe it will change back for those users that have suffered under low quotas. Those silly low limits are a relatively new thing. The attachment sizes accepted by mail servers is a much bigger hassle when sending large emails. Especially since every admin can set their own limit. But I'm not complaining. Large file transfers shouldn't be made through email anyhow.

Free is good. More stuff for free is even better. Now someone just have to come up with some frontend so I can (ab)use GMail as a webdrive.

/Lars.