Lot's of changes at the e-mail front between some of the big players in the web-based free e-mailaccount market. Google's announcement of free 1GB mail accounts came a little bit like a shock, and some small players also started offering 1GB accounts.
Yahoo on their part announced last week that their free e-mailaccounts capacity would raise from 4MB to 100MB.
Just a few months ago, Yahoo charged $60 a year for 100 MB of storage. Starting last Tuesday, that much storage comes free with every account (and the maximum size of any one attached file is now 10 MB instead of 3 MB). The company also consolidated its various extra-cost mail services into one $20-per-year plan, with no graphical ads and with a hefty 2 GB of mail storage.
That's twice what Google is planning. Yahoo said its paid version contains more features than Gmail, including tighter spam filtering and the ability to download messages with standard e-mail programs.
Microsoft previously offered only 2MB space on their Hotmail accounts, but at present they are expanding it to 25MB for some accounts, not all. Users of Hotmail are also able to increase their capacity to 50MB for $40, and to 100MB for $60.
But other users continue to get only 2 MB of storage, and an "All About Hotmail" page at the site shows the old amount as well. A new account opened on Friday afternoon also was limited to 2 MB.
Microsoft spokeswoman Kathleen Callaghan said she had not heard of any free accounts getting more storage.
But she did confirm that the company has plans in the works to beef up Hotmail: "Part of that will ensure that storage won't be an issue," she said. And a Microsoft vice president, Yusuf Mehdi, said last week that users will see a ton of innovation from Hotmail and Microsoft's other communication services over the next year.
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