But Gmail is still new, exclusive
Yahoo and Microsoft have already lost the marketing battle. It looks like Google's unique reputation has given them the ability to spawn a trend when they feel like it.
Microsoft Boosts Storage Capacity in E-Mail War
Thu Jun 24, 2004 02:13 AM ET
SAN FRANCISCO (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 "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."
Hotmail is the second most popular e-mail service after Yahoo Mail, according to Nielsen/NetRatings. The Internet audience research firm does not yet track Google's Gmail.
Microsoft will 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.
