Hotmail upgrading

[Spaceman Spiff 0]

From Microsoft.com

 

REDMOND, Wash., June 24, 2004 - MSN® Hotmail®, the world's most popular free Web-based e-mail service, will undergo a major upgrade, delivering customers world-class e-mail protection as well as enhanced storage to satisfy all their needs. Starting in early July, MSN will roll out free e-mail anti-virus protection to all the 170 million MSN Hotmail customers worldwide, making MSN Hotmail the only free global e-mail service to both scan and clean incoming and outgoing e-mail for viruses and worms before they can enter a customer's inbox. MSN also announced it will bring increased storage - 250MB inboxes - to free MSN Hotmail customers in multiple markets and will introduce MSN Hotmail Plus, an upgraded premium Web service to help customers get the most out of MSN Hotmail.

 

"We know from talking with our customers that online safety is their No. 1 concern," said Blake Irving, corporate vice president of Communication Services and Member Platform for MSN. "MSN is intensely focused on providing a safer and more robust communications experience for consumers. Providing free anti-virus cleaning helps protect our Hotmail customers while guarding members of the overall Hotmail community and the friends and family they e-mail."

 

Later this summer, MSN will begin increasing storage limits for free MSN Hotmail accounts in multiple markets around the world. Customers will receive 125 times their current e mail storage with the introduction of 250MB inboxes and have the ability to send attachments up to 10 MB. Upon upgrade, MSN Hotmail customers will also receive MSN Calendar free, enabling both individual and shared calendaring.

 

Enhancing Web E-Mail With MSN Hotmail Plus

 

The upgraded premium Web service called MSN Hotmail Plus is designed for customers who want to get more out of their MSN Hotmail account. MSN Hotmail Plus will be priced at $19.95* per year in the United States and will provide customers with virtually infinite storage - 2 GB of online storage and the ability to send 20MB attachments, as well as additional offline storage limited only by the size of their computer hard drive. MSN Hotmail Plus subscribers will receive additional benefits, including a more streamlined Web e-mail experience with no graphical advertisements and no account expiration. All current MSN Hotmail Extra Storage subscribers worldwide will be upgraded to MSN Hotmail Plus when it launches globally later this summer. MSN Premium subscribers will also receive these added storage benefits later this year.

 

"By boosting MSN Hotmail storage, we're helping ensure that customers can pick their e-mail service by looking at the overall quality of the service experience," Irving said. "With these new offers, storage will not be an issue for MSN Hotmail customers."

 

Guess they gotta compete w/ Yahoo! and Google's email service.

[Eclipse 0]

Man, the competition is heating up. With 250MB and virus scan...that's sounds good..

[thuganomics 0]

Thank you, competition. I get really sick of my Hotmail account filling up so this is definitely welcome.

[Red Baron 0]

ya, but does this mean that it won't take 10 tries to actually send a message.

[starvenger 0]

Typical Microsoft knee-jerk reaction. Not that I'm complaining...

[bobobrazil1984 0]

However it's still the same crappy interface it's always been... and now this means there will be room for much much more spam that my hotmail account got filled with. Joy.

I'll stick with gmail for now

[JJMc 0]

I don't know what it is...I've had the same hotmail account for over 3 years and I cant remember ONCE getting anything resembling spam. Weird.

[Guest Evolution]

Yeah, I have to agree with the metr0man, the change in space does not change my feelings about the interface that I dislike, and now that I'm with gmail, it'll be hard to turn back unless gmail goes under for some reason.

 

Gmail has a very, very clean interface and the "conversation" feature is pretty damn convenient.