Google Keeps the Pressure on Microsoft
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In the continuing tit-for-tat battle between Google and Microsoft over free e-mail, Google has again upped the ante. In an announcement posted to its Gmail beta Web site last week, Google informed testers it had added three new, requested features to Gmail. "You asked. We said they were coming. And now, they're here," said the Google notice.
The three features are: Via its beta-testers site, Google has told testers it is working to add other requested features, too. Among those upon which the company is working are a plain HTML version of Gmail, as Google is hoping, but not promising, to add include the ability to send messages with HTML formatting, and POP3 client access. When asked whether Google had more features targeted specifically at winning accounts from Microsoft, a corporate spokesman declined to comment, citing the fact that the company is in a quiet period. Google announced last months its plans to go public. The spokesman also declined to provide any kind of timetable as to when Google might make available the final version of Gmail. Google last week moved to acquire digital-photo-management company Picasa Inc. Google also recently rolled out a new feature called Browse By Name for faster searching from Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser. Microsoft's MSN unit, for its part, recently chopped its Hotmail fees and expanded the amount of free Hotmail storage available to its customers, leapfrogging Yahoo, but not Google, in the process. Microsoft is providing 250 megabytes of free storage to Hotmail users. Yahoo is providing 100 MB. With Gmail, Google is providing customers 1 GB of free e-mail storage. MSN also is expected to launch shortly new hosted IT services for small businesses. First among these will be some kind of new e-mail service that makes use of Outlook on the front end and Hotmail on the back end that will obviate the need for an Exchange Server on the back end. |
Comments (1)
If Microsoft wants to mimic Googles winning ways they have to look no further than googles search pages. Plain and simple and unencumbered by flashing ad for Microsoft and Microsoft partner services.
Windows media player and Messenger are nothing but constant ad assaults that spend more time tracking you and serving ads than they do on their secondary tasks such as delivering media and chatting. Simple and effective is what made Google king, Microsoft and many others could learn a great deal from Google if they look at the obvious!
Posted by Randy Smith | July 20, 2004 6:10 PM