Microsoft boosts storage capacity in e-mail war

[Gwarsbane]

http://edition.cnn.com/2004/TECH/internet/...reut/index.html

SAN FRANCISCO, California (Reuters) -- Microsoft Corp. plans to give paying customers for its Hotmail e-mail service 2 gigabytes of storage and boost the size limits on free accounts, matching similar moves earlier this month by rival Yahoo Inc., the company said Wednesday.

Microsoft also said that it will roll out free e-mail and anti-virus protection to all the 170 million MSN Hotmail customers worldwide that will both scan and clean incoming and outgoing e-mail for viruses and worms before they can enter a customer's inbox.

The changes will start early in July, Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft said.

Yahoo earlier this month made good on a promise to boost the storage it provides to users of its e-mail service, raising the stakes in the e-mail war with Web search rival Google Inc. Google has announced plans for its Gmail service that gives users 1 gigabyte of free storage, far more than offered by Yahoo or Microsoft's e-mail services.

"The playing field has changed," said Blake Irving, vice president of communication services and member platform for MSN. "We're going to take storage off the table as an issue."

Microsoft will now boost storage to 250 megabytes for users of its free MSN Hotmail and also increased the size of attachments that can be sent with e-mails, to 10 megabytes from 1 megabyte previously. Users of the free MSN Hotmail before had 2 megabytes of storage capacity.

Microsoft also announced a premium Web service called MSN Hotmail Plus, for $19.95 per year, giving customers 2 gigabytes of online storage and the ability to send 20 megabyte attachments.

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.

Customers of Hotmail Plus also will not see graphical advertisements -- they will be replaced by text advertisements -- and their accounts will never expire, Irving said. Users of the free Hotmail e-mail service must log in at least once every 30 days or their accounts expire.

[Quickening]

I'll stick with my Hotmail, I don't use much space anyways, but damn that will be badass. :D

[[CAKE]anonymity]

It would be great for MP3's and such, 10 meg max attachment size and 250 storage.

[brokend]

i dunno, i kinda bothers me that in my hotmail accont i don't have a single thing (not a single thing), yet it claims that i've used 63% of my available storage.:huh:

[FreeFall]

nothing in your junk folder either? I set it to delete all junk mail right away and a message from anyone but someone in my adress book is considered junk so. . .I'm only at like 2%

[sage_4]

I got my hotmail account before there was an option to pay for them. Now I recieve a monthly email from msn about how Kickin' (!) it would be to give them money for something I dont need! 10mb's is more than enough for me, this will be nice, but i dont think it will convince me to start sending money away.

[Cactus Dude]

The 250 MB storage space isn't implemented until Fall.

I have gmail by the way... so if you want an invite to it, just ask me.

[brokend]

i don't get it. damn you, Gates, and your subliminal messaging (notice the 'get extra storage' link right below the gullibility meter)

[Gwarsbane]

I let my hotmail inbox fill up with the e-mails I want and then I download it into the e-mail/newsgroup program Agent (much better then outlook or outlook express, things can't launch on their own). I use a second program called Web2POP to download it all. :)

I just keep my junk box empty and it could take me about 3 or 4 weeks before I have to clean out my inbox. :)


With 250 megs, I will be able to go a couple of months inbetween cleaning out the inbox to make more room. :)

[[CAKE]anonymity]

Has yahoo said anything about what they plan to do?

[Quickening]

THey have already giving more space and bigger attachments, I forgot how much. But they are ahead of Hotmail.

[Guest]

gmail has a lot of nice organsation features plus the fact that if you register your name as [email protected], you can apparently use [email protected], or [email protected], or even [email protected] to be able to filter. There are also groups for subclassing your mail say as Pictures or Friends, etc.... Hotmail is lacking far behind in that regard. However, hotmail's UI is nicer to use than Gmail's currently is... Gmail's still has a lot of rough edges but it's in beta... oh and yeah I have gmail:D