Hotmail Returns?
Looks like Microsoft wasn’t going to stay behind the pack in the free e-mail wars for long. Hotmail has announced that it will now offer 250MB of free storage right away and will offer 2GB if you pay your soul to them. The storage bump will begin in early July.
So by my count, the three major e-mail providers now offer:
GMail: 1GB free, no paid storage (yet)
Yahoo Mail: 100MB free, 2GB paid
Hotmail: 250MB free, 2GB paid
Looks like Yahoo and Hotmail did what they hope was a “just enough” upgrade that it won’t lose any users to Gmail, despite the massive differences in storage sizes compared to Gmail. You must remember, Gmail’s appearance caught everyone off-guard (remember that everyone at first thought it was one of Google’s famous April Fools jokes?). Google’s infrastructure is very scalable, apparently Yahoo’s and Hotmail’s isn’t as easily to expand as they first had to figure out how to answer Gmail, then upped their storage limits “just enough” so they won’t lose customers (their hope), but well short of Gmail.
Interesting though that Hotmail, long the e-mail provider with the smallest storage space (2MB!!!) is now a 150MB more then Yahoo Mail. I would not be surprised if Yahoo ups its storage a little more because of this. Also expect the free e-mail wars to heat up if Gmail really catches on. I wouldn’t be surprised if Yahoo and Hotmail jump their storage capacities up more, especially when Gmail is opened to the public.
Thanks but no thanks Yahoo and Microsoft, I’ll stick with Gmail.
Oh and I have invitations if anyone wants any 
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Well, the post is a few hours old and no takers yet… so I’ll volunteer. If your looking to give away an invite, I’d be a very appreciative recipient!
Christopher
Consider it done. I have 6 more for whoever needs one. Just post here on the blog.
You are very generous Chris. I would be grateful if you would send me an invite. I can’t wait to use doron’s new extension.
I’d love to give gmail a spin…and yeah, it is interesting to see the difference. I’ve long avoided hotmail since the old account I had filled up with spam so quickly - but that was 5 years ago, when spam was perhaps a little less virulent than it is now. then again, spam filters were a lot less advanced back then too. I’d be interested to see what spam protection they have, and how good (or otherwise) it is.
If you still have any invites, I’d be grateful if you sent me one.
John
Nice blog !!!… If you have any invites left out, I would be grateful if you can send me one…Happy Blogging !!!
Ganesh
Seems there’s not more than four posters before me? I’d like an invite too!
… and thanks for your really nice coverage of Mozilla news!
Tobias
If you have any more Gmail invites I would love to give it a try, thanks in advance, Edward
hehehe, if there’s one way to get plenty of comments on your blog, it’s to mention that you’ve got Gmail invites to give away
Ok, I think I sent everyone who asked an invite. I am out of them right now, I’ll put up another blog post in the future if I get more.
Ben: Shhh, don’t give away my secret for hits
Hey every body … i’m happy coz not ma hotmail is 250 MB free … after 5 years suffering with that red size line … if u nkow what i mean
..
but now … there’s a way 2 get 2Gb free from @msn.com …
but is there anyway 2 get our free hotmail.com 2Gb ??