Hotmail Pumps Up Free Storage-----Good News!!!

天涯

In the wake of Yahoo Mail's recent upgrades and Google's looming GMail (still in beta), Microsoft now plans to improve its own Web-based e-mail service by sometime later this summer. The company says that that as part of an effort to improve customer experience, it plans to enhance the free e-mail Hotmail service with 250MB of storage per user, up from a relatively meager 2MB, and upgrade virus protection and cleaning.
The virus protection will search correspondence for worms and viruses. This is, according to Microsoft officials, in response to customer feedback that listed e-mail safety as the number one concern.

"We are investing ourselves in protection in order to make Hotmail the best e-mail client to meet our customers' needs. We believe customers should choose based on overall quality and not on storage space," stated Brooke Richardson, the Lead Product Manager of Communication Services.

Microsoft is also introducing an updated paid service: MSN Hotmail Plus. For a yearly fee of $19.95, members will get 2GB of storage space, the ability to send unlimited attachments with a 2MB maximum, no advertisements, and no account expiration.

Last week, Yahoo increased mail storage for its free service to a whopping 100MB, a welcome expansion from the former 4MB capacity. The change, however, left the popular e-mail service groggy. Customers complained of slow response—if they could get the site to load at all. To avoid similar performance snags, Microsoft plans to introduce its changes slowly, starting in July for American users. Subscribers will the get the upgrade first.

Google's GMail, still in beta, promises to become the new contender in the Web e-mail category. At 1GB, it will offer the most storage of the three major competing free-mail services. Other GMail features include a 10MB maximum attachment size per message, a new and user-friendly "conversation" view of e-mail threads, and a somewhat unique interface. Features are still subject to change.