Hotmail, welcome to the Internet
Back in the day even before Gmail came along, (then) Hotmail was probably the most popular email solution for home users and basically anyone who wanted a free email account. Then Gmail came along and messed everything up for them. Thus, since 2005, Microsoft has been busy trying to revamp Hotmail, for example through things like more disk space. It’s hard to imagine that there was a time when Hotmail users had 25mb while Gmail users had 1GB, but that was the case when Gmail was first introduced.
Sure Hotmail managed to revamp it’s interface recently, but honestly, it’s nowhere near what Gmail has. The top quarter of the screen is filled up with huge banner advertisements and links no one cares about to other areas of Windows Live. Even the interface itself just doesn’t feel as snappy or as clean as Gmail’s interface. No doubt though, it was a step in the right direction.
Still, for some strange reason, Hotmail never provided free POP3 access. For the uninitiated, it means that Hotmail users couldn’t view their email through external 3rd-party email clients like Thunderbird or Outlook or whatnot. The ONLY way to view your email was to navigate through the site’s horrible online interface. In comparison, Gmail provided such access from the get go in 2004.
However, only this year, in 2009, is Microsoft finally playing the catch-up game. They just announced POP3 access for Brazil and US users, along with access for Europe and UK users which they’ve been working on since January. Honestly, Microsoft needed 5 years (after Gmail was introduced) to introduce such a fundamental feature? Sure it was present in the past, but one had to pay just to be able to read his/her email wherever they wanted to. Even after Gmail came along in 2004 and made free POP3 access an “industry standard” so to speak, Microsoft never took the hint to introduce that same feature, hence they’ve watched their users steadily switch over to Gmail one by one.
It seems like I’ll be sticking with Gmail as well, seeing as how they haven’t even provided POP3 access for Asian users. In fact, this lack of POP3 access is one of the biggest reasons why I don’t use Hotmail anymore. At the time of this writing, I have exactly 146 unread email messages in my inbox. Though I’ve got to check it from time to time because some people still email me at my Hotmail account, it goes to show how little I bother about it anymore.
Not to mention Microsoft might be doing too little, too late. If they took 5 years to introduce POP3 access, one can only wonder when they’ll finally be able to introduce an interface I’d actually bother to use, because half the time it doesn’t even work properly with Mozilla Firefox, which is my (as well as many other people’s) primary browser.
In my opinion, we could probably see Microsoft closing down Hotmail eventually.
