Hotmail Means to Double Gmail Storage 616
deputydink writes "Osviews reports that Microsoft's free email service, Hotmail, is throwing down to Google by increasing the free storage to 2GB! I wonder how choked the Hotmail Plus subscribers will be."
WAR! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:WAR! (Score:5, Insightful)
Hotmail is offering 2GB because that's all they got up their sleves. Gmail is a *huge* improvement over Hotmail on the user interface level. And the Gmail spam filter is pretty awesome.
Storage is only a factor until a certain degree - meaning that 2MB is nearly impossible to live off of, but beyond 1 GB you are just talking wasted space for most users.
Some may disagree, but at least in the near future, as far as e-mail is concerned - 1 GB will more than suit 97% of the webmail users out there.
Right now I don't see Gmail touching their storage level. First and foremost they will focus on the user experience, new features, server availability, etc. Then maybe down the line when they see a large threshold of their users in need of more space, they will either then up the storage on all accounts, or offer paid premium accounts.
And on an extra note as a Hotmail user, I don't trust anything they are saying right now, they promised more space like months ago and still haven't delivered. I love my Gmail though.
Re:WAR! (Score:5, Interesting)
I was interested when GMail was first announced, but if they're going to make me beg for an account, they can shove it.
Hotmail sucks big time, but at least its accessible.
Re:WAR! (Score:5, Informative)
The spam filtering is okay. I've had one or two legitimate list emails noted as false positives. Nothing new here.
Forum reply notifications get lumped under one big conversation because Google thinks they are part of a conversation. Err, bzzzzt wrong! Plus the funky javascript preview thing cuts off the most important part of those emails (the link to the forum thread).
The contacts system is an abomination. You can enter a name and an email and some notes. No room for address, phone or anything.
Sure it's a beta, but IMHO it's like a 0.4 rather than a 0.9 version.
Re:WAR! (Score:5, Informative)
- The spam filtering is okay. I've had one or two legitimate list emails noted as false positives. Nothing new here.
- the funky javascript preview thing cuts off the most important part of those emails
Google has been tweaking both those features in the past few weeks. I recently noticed a number of mailing lists had been dropped into Spam, even though I had filters set to label them. That isn't happening anymore. And I believe the view message pane has begun showing more of the message w/o having to launch a popup.Annoyances: Bad contacts and filters sorting. No notifications of messages in Spam, filter-labeled messages in Spam are hidden from inbox.
What's nice is that the number of filters is unlimited, versus hotmail's 10, the ability to search your old messages with google's engine, and less obtrusive, even interesting ads.
Re:WAR! (Score:3, Interesting)
i was interested too. interested enough to buy an invite from ebay (back before they changed the TOS. now everyones favourite "had to" close down my account. great business plan.
1. create product
2. create demand
3. artifically restrict supply
4. fuck over the poor users [slashdot.org]
real friendly like. thanks for the advanced notice google. all that mail i have/had stored there is now effectively lost
Re:WAR! (Score:5, Insightful)
I have to admit that large corps rarely have anything human to say to their subscribers (paying or not), take eBay for instance, you can't even speak to a human, its all automated and the people behind it are locked away behind closed doors. Ever tried complaining to ebay? They closed my account for non payment of £1.12. They send emails out with "do not reply to this address" how on earth am I supposed to contact you then? Carrier pigeon? No I have to use the crappy contact system and go around in the endless loop of automated answers.
I have a theory - The bigger the company is, the bigger percentage of idiots working for said company. Read into that what you will.
Re:WAR! (Score:4, Interesting)
Ebay's telephone numbers (Score:5, Informative)
May be dated, obsolete, your milage may vary, you have been warned.
Re:WAR! (Score:3, Interesting)
I've heard horror stories before, but it IS possible to get in touch with people from companies like that, when they need to speak
Re:WAR! (Score:3, Interesting)
Have some patience.
Re:WAR! (Score:3, Insightful)
You bought a BETA Gmail account off ebay - a pretty stupid thing to do since its easy to get your own one for free - and started using it as your primary email address.
Now that its gone you're complaining at google for taking away your BETA Gmail account which you bought under dubious circumstances.
I'm sorry, I have no sympathy for you - you're just an idiot.
Re:WAR! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:WAR! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:WAR! (Score:5, Interesting)
However, this isnt' simply about raising the stakes up to attract new users. This is also about retaining the existing ones - millions out there who are tired to Hotmail (simply because it was the first and at one time the only, free email service provider). Add to this those users who are tied to hotmail because of using MSN messenger as well.
Now with Gmail offering such a vast leap over storage space, a large number of those users would be ready to migrate (no matter how painful it would be) to other email providers. However, if Hotmail provides them similar (or better) service (read storage - since that's the only thing that has been talked about most everywhere), they would have no reason to.
Re:WAR! (Score:3, Informative)
But I can understand the confusion since they seem linked together, in the sign-up process it is very vague...
Re:WAR! (Score:5, Interesting)
On the other hand, apples paid subscription service (idisk) with 100 MB of storage (At $99
Michael
Re:WAR! (Score:3, Informative)
Along with the 100MB of storage, it includes hosting, several commercial applications, and several discounts on software and subscription. .mac also lets you access your bookmarks from any computer with internet access.
Re:WAR! (Score:4, Interesting)
Along with the 100MB of storage, it includes hosting, several commercial applications, and several discounts on software and subscription.
Yes, I know that. However, its the only bit I'm really interested in, and its way too small. The antivirus stuff will probably be useful one day when there are a few viruses around, and I use my own domain's for eMail.
But you would have to ask why, as a paid subscription service, they offer 10% of the storage of gMail.
I would love to use idisk, and when I can offload a significant amount of the 40 GB of backup data I have online, I will do so.
Michael
Re:WAR! (Score:5, Interesting)
Whoa, hang back a second here. I'm not saying that the other bits of
But the flip side of the coin - are you seriously suggesting that you think that the 15MB of storage for eMails and 100MB of personal storage is enough for you? Well, perhaps it is, but it isn't nearly enough for me, nor is it enough for many others now. And if I subscribe to
I'm not trying to shoot down apple, I am seriously happy with my powerbook and my wife uses her iBook like she has never used any other computer. They work, and I like.
However, some things that apple do are crippled deliberately to promote further sales. iSync can sync your personal data to all sorts of stuff - your phone, your PDA, your idisk and your ipod - but not to any other external hard drive. Which is a pity if you want more storage than you can buy in an iPod. Likewise iTunes is the only client to stream audio to an airport express - but I didn't hear anyone on
So I'm saying, yes, I want more storage, and I'm not paying money to apple until it offers a gig of storage on the iDisk for a little less than $350 per year (current pricing on website http://www.mac.com/1/mac_faq.html#upgradingstorag
And no, you can't get more than one gig on iDisk, probably because with their pricing model they know that nobody will ever take the subscription out.
In other words - 1 GB iDisk $350 per year. 1 GB gMail - free. Something is wrong there with somebody's pricing model for such a difference to exist.
And when apple realises this and drops its price a bit, more people (including myself) will pay them money for the services.
Michael
Not even 100MB - 15MB! (Score:3, Insightful)
I have a
Yes, it includes other things, like a virus checker. WTF?
I don't need a WebDav server for files - I use Samba over an SSH tunnel to my home server. It's a lot faster and more convenient.
The other things they offer, like game trials and discounts on magazines really strike me as the kind
Re:WAR! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:WAR! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:WAR! (Score:4, Funny)
Re:WAR! (Score:3, Informative)
Re:WAR! (Score:4, Interesting)
- To: Useless, as people will Cc a list, or the email will be sent to a smaller list which is then redistributed to the larger list. Bugtraq is an example of this.
- From: Some lists set the "From" header to their own address, others leave it unaltered. In the latter case, the "From" header is useless, unless you happen to have a full subscriber list. Even if you do, you're screwed if somebody is subscribed to two different lists that you are on.
- Subject: This usually works for lists that insert the list name into the subject. However, there are exceptions. I'm subscribed to the DBMail [dbmail.org] users list which inserts "[dbmail]" into the subject. I also receive bounce notifications from my mailer daemon which includes "DBMail" in the subject. If I set a filter to match "[dbmail]" in the subject, it ignores the square brackets and so tags the bounced messages as well. It also tags emails on the dbmail-dev list.
By applying multiple labels I have it working after a fashion. It took way too much time however for such a simple task.I know and understand Gmail is in beta. I have reported all the problems I have had months ago. None have been fixed. However, the very fact that you cannot search by a user-defined header baffles me. I can only assume they index the messages by to, from, and subject, and don't cache the rest of the headers in a usable form.
Shrug. In the end of the day, I don't particularily care, I'll continue using Sylpheed-Claws [sourceforge.net] which copes extremely well. I would have like a web-based backup though for when I'm not near my laptop. I guess I'll have to finish writing my own.
Re:WAR! (Score:5, Informative)
4. their interface works perfectly under firefox. It is not IE only.
This is a beta service. Except improvements.
Re:WAR! (Score:3, Interesting)
You are right that Gmail is not perfect. Since getting my account some weeks ago, I've been keeping a list of needed improvements - everything from outright bugs (I can tell you how to make it say "displaying items 101-100 of 100") to wish-list items like importing address books, or even importing whole e-mail archives with the correct dates.
Cost of disk space vs. cost of engineering & m (Score:5, Insightful)
Disk space is cheap. When you give users 2GB of disk space, they don't really use it all up. The disk space is not pre-allocated and immediately consumed. Thus, 2GB is really more about users' perception of Hotmail's offering, and this positive perception comes at a low price (again: disk space is cheap)
On the other hand, it costs a lot to pay a few dozen developers to add valuable, innovative new features, such as GMail's labels.
It also costs a lot of money to market Hotmail, to evangelize and to hype it, which is what people are doing with/for GMail for 'free'.
In conclusion, it's easy and not that expensive to just throw 'we offer 2GB' on the site, but it is expensive to add features and market the service.
Re:WAR! (Score:4, Insightful)
You are right, but look at that fact another way: the vast majority of users can't begin to fill 1GB in the foreseeable future. (I got a gmail account some weeks ago, subscribed it to LKML, and every other high-traffic linux list I could find - and it's now at only 15%.) Once capacity gets beyond about 100MB, most users won't come anywhere near their limit in the next couple of years.
In fact, I'd bet that Google probably doesn't have enough disk space on hand for n users * 1 GB. They're probably under by (WAG) 90%. But that makes sense - why buy all the storage they're going to need right now if most if it is going to sit empty? With disk drives falling in price every day, it makes sense - especially at that scale - to purchase space only as it's needed.
Therefore, Google's 1GB limit doesn't really mean anything, except as a foil to those few radical cases who see free storage as a chance to mail their pr0n collection to themselves, thus achieving an offsite backup. For most users, the limit might as well be 2GB. Or 10GB. Or 100GB. Given that (a) most users can't use all their space and (b) Google's not buying drives for that empty space anyway, then the limit becomes just a marketing tactic... but a good one, considering how much attention it has gotten for gmail.
The guys over at Hotmail are just now figuring this out.
My guess: when gmail is finally opened to the public, it will at least match the free storage of any other service out there, if not exceeding the others. Maybe 2GB, maybe 5GB, but I expect to see more that 1GB.
Re:WAR! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Billy made a comment like yours some time ago. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Billy made a comment like yours some time ago. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I wouldn't know. (Score:3, Interesting)
Mod down all those twats who beg for Gmail accounts in every story mentioning them; and also those showoffs offering them. Everybody will havwe a Gmail account in a couple of months.
Re:WAR! (Score:3, Informative)
Re:WAR! (Score:3, Informative)
Gmail will have the plain-HTML version done soon [google.com]. Check out the list of stuff they're working on [google.com].
(both links might require a Gmail login)
Yahoo silent player (Score:5, Insightful)
Many services now crossing 1 gig mark, (http://fearside.org/~vivekgite/gmail-watch/ [fearside.org] look right side Bigger the better - MailBox); EAST or WEST gmail is best of free email, but for "Small Business" yahoo rocks.
That'll be nice... (Score:5, Insightful)
2GB. That's nice and all, but when are they going to actually deliver on the 10MB they promised everyone? I don't use Hotmail, but my girlfriend does, and I'm unable to send her any attachments larger than about 500k because she keeps old emails...
Re:That'll be nice... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:That'll be nice... (Score:5, Informative)
that said, I'm still waiting for the storage upgrade they promised, up from 2MB to whatever. I was going to retire my hotmail account and go elsewhere, but I decided to wait when they announced. It's starting to sound like what they've been known to do in the past - announce vapourware in order to delay migration/movement to elsewhere.
Re:That'll be nice... (Score:3, Interesting)
It catches most of the junk mail, though I've found that if you get some spam to your Hotmail Inbox it's better to go to the webmail page, and report it as junk mail rather than just deleting it. If you don't report it they cont
Easy... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:That'll be nice... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:That'll be nice... (Score:3, Informative)
No problem. (Score:5, Funny)
It will be in the next version, then delayed (Score:5, Informative)
The older people will remember MS promising the sky to stop people from adopting OS/2 and the younger can look to Longhorn. Not even close to release yet and it is already being stripped and things MS promised to be in XP but really where in Longhorn are now definitly going to be in "who cares". WinFS anyone? How long has MS been promising a better filesystem?
This little announcement grabbed MS a few headlines. None of the media will be coming back to MS in a few weeks and ask them why they haven't delivered. Journalists ain't even smart enough to question goverments on breaking campaign promises. Far easier to copy paste the next press release.
I'm holding out... (Score:5, Funny)
Great! (Score:4, Funny)
Next big thing. (Score:5, Insightful)
I bet the next big thing will be from whoever reaches the 700mb attachment limit
That's strange (Score:5, Informative)
Not that I'm really bothered by it, it's just always fun to see huge claims.
Re:That's strange (Score:5, Insightful)
I suspect they are dragging their feet to squeeze all the upgrade money they can from the 2 meg accounts.
Also, I'm sure that there will be major strings attached, like having to sign in to your account every three weeks or lose it.
Alternatively, they may be dragging their feet because there are serious technical issues at hand, like with everybody letting their accounts fill with spam, which means they have will actually have to deliver tera/petabytes of storage.
The only thing I use my hotmail account for is for when people get really pushy for an email, I give them my hotmail address.
But I agree with an earlier poster, I don't need 2 gigs. Just deliver on 15 megs.
Unlimited (Score:5, Funny)
They can always boot people from the service if they use too much space anyway.
Re:Unlimited (Score:3, Interesting)
Of course, it will be the people that do receive lots of mail (I receive about 100 MB/month) that first jump on it.
GMX offers 1GB free and 8GB for paying customers (Score:3, Informative)
Good business (Score:5, Insightful)
Is that good business?
Re:Good business (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft wants to control Online Identity services and Instant Messaging. Google has the ability to be a significant threat to that if they decide to enter the market. (I'm hoping they will)
Re:Good business (Score:4, Funny)
Agreed. Also there is all that "life is better with the butterfly" crap that they have to try and justify.
Re:Good business (Score:5, Interesting)
OK, googled it, found these: In 1998, the attempt to migrate to NT apparently failed. [vnunet.com] And in 2002, they appear to have tried again. [theinquirer.net]
Anybody know if it worked?
Re:Good business (Score:4, Informative)
I'll believe it when I see it (Score:5, Insightful)
So far, it seems like it is all rumors.
First we heard that they were going to up to 250MB. Hasn't happened yet. Now 2GB. I'm not holding my breath.
If Hotmail would actually filter spam, and do something about the headache-inducing interface, -that- would be an improvement. Thank goodness for gotmail [freshmeat.net]!
you can see it (Score:3, Funny)
if you email me or something i'll mail you a screenshot
cheers
Suchetha
Re:I'll believe it when I see it (Score:3, Insightful)
Gmail will still be better (Score:5, Informative)
But Hotmail still lacks all the great features of Gmail such as labels, conversations, and keyboard shortcuts. Hotmail won't be nearly as good as Gmail is.
Re:Gmail will still be better (Score:3, Insightful)
...so? (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't see why I'd WANT to keep 2 gigs on my hotmail account, unless they make it as full-featured and easy to use as gmail.
Re:...so? (Score:5, Funny)
Gee guys, whatever happened to grep?
Re:...so? (Score:3, Funny)
Email! The next kazaa! (Score:3, Funny)
Couple a megachips... (Score:5, Interesting)
now it comes to the point - (Score:5, Funny)
Size matters, but it's not everything (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not saying this just because I like Gmail, since I *would* consider another service if Gmail just offered 20 MB while another offered 1 GB. It's just that these storage spaces are no longer an issue for me at 1 GB.
More like the opposite -- risking having so much mail and suddenly something bad happens to the online service.
Re:Size matters, but it's not everything (Score:3, Insightful)
Gmail took the two-pronged approach to rope people in initially with the large space, but got them completely astounded by the awesome interface.
Not Free (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Not Free (Score:5, Informative)
Free Hotmail = 250 Megs (in fall)
http://news.com.com/Hotmail+to+offer+250MB+of+fre
Blurb wrong... (Score:5, Informative)
The "free" accounts do NOT get 2GB! (Score:5, Informative)
RTFA... misleading /. headings strike again...
Reading the deeper linked article from the top linked article, which is: http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=17949/ [theinquirer.net] It does not specifically mention the "free" snotmail account gets 2GB.
Reading M$N's page about it, http://www.imagine-msn.com/hotmail/en-us/ [imagine-msn.com] it looks like the M$N Plus accounts will get 2GB, which means the ones you pay $19.95/mo for. This is NOT the free snotmail account getting 2GB. These will get 250MB. Not GB, MB.
Jeez the /. editors need to do a little more fact checking eh? But /. editors actually RTFA??? Naaaahhhhh.
Google is still ahead in the actual FREE email storage space war. 100MB for Yahoo, 250MB for M$N. ... so, anyone got gmail beta invites? ;)
The "free" accounts do NOT get 250MB! (Score:5, Informative)
I just logged into my Hotmail account directly (I rarely do this any more, thanks to this [freshmeat.net]), and found that my mail limit was upped from a paltry 1MB to a whopping 2MB!
Seems like there is a kind of "reverse FUD" thing going on here...
Missing the point (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Missing the point--try reading Gmail offline (Score:3, Interesting)
The big plus to hotmail over gmail right now if that hotmail supports rich clients. You can use it without ads and with full offline support through Outlook or Outlook Express. Try pulling out the cable and reading your Gmail. That and you can actually get a gmail account without groveling or buying one on ebay. Incidentally, I did get one a few weeks ago but am already relegated to a really
A note from Microsoft. (Score:5, Funny)
I.O.U. 1,998 Megabytes.
Sincerely,
William H. Gates
Re:A note from Microsoft. (Score:5, Funny)
2GB doesn't solve Hotmail's problems (Score:4, Informative)
"service unavailable, try again later" (Score:3, Informative)
Which other email provider occasionally gives you the message "service unavailable, try again later"?
Well, GMail, sometimes. But it's still good enough that I don't care :)
MS/Hotmail missing the point. (Score:4, Insightful)
I think adding more space is missing the point.
Improving the user interface, fulfilling promisses to the userbase, and making the process of web-email more straightforward should be their focus. Not supersizing their accounts.
Taking a look at the hotmail site, I am reminded of college bulletin boards where advertisements and flyers are stapled to the wall haphazardly, each trying to grab your attention when all you really wanted to find was that note your friend left you on the board.
Google's Gmail is the information frontdesk at a five star hotel where you walk by, ask if you have any messages, and get on with your life.
If MS/Hotmail is just throwing space/money at the problem, then they are missing the point entirely and will just be wasting money. Not that that's stopped them before or that that seems to matter to them much.
Microsoft miss the point (Score:3, Informative)
Charset support (Score:3, Interesting)
2gb is nice though. But I already have a real mail server with ~10GB storage
Free German service has better than that... (Score:5, Informative)
However the fun doesn't end here, as they also offer automatic POP/IMAP e-mail retrieval, custom filters for automatic redirection, SMS/MMS alerts, up to 15 aliases...
Oh, and did I mention you can use your capacity as an iDisk-like network disk and share your files with other GMX members? I think they even have a Windows plug-in to mount your storage account as a network drive in the Explorer.
Alas, AFAIK it's in German only. I for one, welcome our new German overlords...
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Do It Yourself... (Score:3, Funny)
* turning my TV on and off for such a short time significantly shortens the MTBF of the components, and is therefore environmentally nefast.
* I do use low wattage bulbs, for the reason that I have a low amount of current available, so if I wat to see something, I have to use mini-TLs; plus they're cheaper on the long run.
* I do not have a microwave oven because it's far to easy to heat junk food with one.
Is this even true? Where is the announcement? (Score:3, Interesting)
This may be a way of theinquirer.net getting some advertising out of
Not for free.... (Score:3, Informative)
Yay! 250MB of SPAM to delete every day!
Thank you Google! (Score:4, Funny)
Thank you, thank you, thank you, Google of Sherwood.
Microsoft FUD as usual (Score:4, Interesting)
This is the second time that Microsoft has made grandiose announcements about how much space they will give away for free, but nothing has really changed - Yahoo stepped up to the plate immediately and gave everyone 100 MB.
Let's look at that more closely; Yahoo said they were going to give everyone 100 MB, then they did it. Microsoft has promised always promised the moon but we're all still waiting.
Why put up with it? Try out Yahoo mail - it's really really good, and it's really really 100 MB. Right now. Not tomorrow, or "soon", now.
Why does anyone, let along
Of course! (Score:4, Funny)
Phear MS technology you Google!
It's not all about storage! (Score:3, Insightful)
Woo hoo! Even MORE sucky service!!! (Score:3)
Hotmail went steeply downhill after MS bought them, and has never recovered. There are better and more respected services out there. Who CARES how much storage they'll give you?
only cost hotmail $0.50 (Score:3, Interesting)
2MB now versus 1GB when?? (Score:3, Insightful)
So right now, a 2Mb free hotmail account is much more atractive to me than a 1Gb but-you-can't have-one-yet Gmail account !
Re:Regular e-mail (Score:5, Insightful)
Quite true in many cases, but there are good reasons for using webmail (combined with IMAP, if possible!) It is great to have consistent layout of saved mailboxes available on multiple computers, for example. It's also nice to have saved messages available when out of town, if you don't use a laptop. Finally, your address stays the same if you switch ISPs, and even keeps working if you don't have any internet service for a while.
That said, I would not use a web-only mail service myself. I'm just saying there are uses for it. Personally I have my own domain name, set up with IMAP and SquirrelMail pointed at it -- all the advantages of webmail without the annoyances.