MSN Hotmail is a free webmail e-mail service, which is accessible via a web browser. Its competitors include AIM Mail, Gmail and Yahoo! Mail. Windows Live Mail is to replace Hotmail once it is complete.

History

Hotmail, founded by Sabeer Bhatia and Jack Smith in 1995, was commercially launched on July 4, 1996, Independence Day in the United States, symbolically representing freedom from ISPs. Jack Smith first had the idea of accessing e-mail via the web from a computer anywhere in the world, originally in order to get by corporate firewalls blocking regular mail services. When Sabeer Bhatia came up with the business plan for the mail service, he tried all kinds of names ending in "-mail" and finally settled on Hotmail because it included the letters "HTML" - the markup language used to write the base of web pages. It was initially referred to as HoTMaiL with selective upper casing.

Hotmail was originally backed by the venture capital firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson. By December 1997, Hotmail reported more than 8.5 million subscribers [1] and was sold later that month to Microsoft for a reported US$400m, after which it was rebranded under the MSN umbrella.

By February 1999, Hotmail reported more than 30 million active members. [2] Hotmail serves e-mail accounts in many countries, supporting 17 languages, and is still one of the largest webmail providers as of July 2005, with 35.5% world market share according to comScore Media Metrix data.

The Hotmail development and operations teams are based in Mountain View, CA at the company's Silicon Valley Campus.

Storage

Hotmail offers 250 MB of free e-mail storage (although there is a 10 MB attachment limit) for users in 24 countries, among them the United States, Brazil, Canada, the UK, Spain and Australia; users in other countries may get a mailbox limit of 2 MB, which is usually increased to 250 MB after a period of time. This substantial increase in mailbox size was introduced shortly after Google's Gmail debuted. MSN is now offering 2 GB of free e-mail storage to members. [3]. At present, customers can pay a fee to receive 2 GB of storage and 20 MB attachments. Some countries still get only 2 MB of mailbox limit.

POP3 access

MSN accounts do not have POP3 email access. It is possible to check one's own e-mail using Microsoft Outlook and Outlook Express on PC and Microsoft Entourage on Mac, or using the WebDAV protocol and an extension for Mozilla Thunderbird [4]. While this service was free for a number of years, Microsoft announced on September 27, 2004 that they were making it a subscription-only service for new users immediately and existing users from April 2005. However, existing users are still able to access their Hotmail accounts via this protocol for free as of August 2006. It is unclear if or when Microsoft will revoke this feature as many users rely on this function. Users can get around this restriction however, by using software that simulates a POP server to which the e-mail application connects.

FreePOPs ¹ is an example of a free software application that allows email clients access to webmail (including Hotmail) services through POP3.

POP3 access had been granted at one point in Hotmail's history, and legacy account holders can still access POP3 settings. This allows mail from other accounts to be accessed through Hotmail using the "POP mail" button located on the Hotmail toolbar.

There is now a new service in beta testing called Windows Live Mail Desktop which allows access on its desktop client to free or paid MSN Hotmail/Windows Live Mail accounts. However if you have a free account an ad will be displayed. Windows Live Mail Desktop is available for direct sign-up in the United Kingdom and United States.

Hotmail domains

On November 18, 2004, Hotmail began offering email addresses from several country-specific domains. For example, users can now register a @hotmail.co.uk address, which gives users greater choice in their e-mail address, as many @hotmail.com addresses are already taken. MSN had run auctions on eBay for popular addresses when the service launched and the money was donated to the NSPCC charity.

MSN offered a premium service entitled "Personal Address", but it was decommissioned in August of 2006 and replaced with Windows Live Custom Domains, a free service under the Windows Live brand of Microsoft online services.

Windows Live Custom Domains is offered to anyone who owns a domain through a 3rd party registrar. Customers can sign up at http://domains.live.com, register their domain, and receive unlimited free Hotmail accounts, 40 invitations to Windows Live Mail beta, and Open Membership, which allows anyone to sign up for an e-mail account with the domain name without the administrator's intervention.

E-mail services

• MSN Hotmail - Basic, free e-mail. Includes 250 MB of e-mail storage and 10 MB attachments.
• MSN Hotmail Plus - $19.95 a year. Includes 2 GB of e-mail storage, 20 MB attachments, and no graphical advertisements.
• Microsoft Office Outlook Live - $44.95 a year. Includes 2 GB of e-mail storage, 20 MB attachments, and no graphical advertisements. Also includes Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 for Subscription Services with free upgrades, allowing users to synchronize Hotmail with Outlook.

Miscellaneous

As of June 2006, Hotmail users can now send instant messages from within Hotmail using the integrated Web Messenger function, without having to be signed in to Windows Live Messenger or have the program installed at all.

At the Hotmail main screen, users can access integrated MSN services such as Calendar and Contacts (the latter being shared with Windows Live Messenger).

In December 2004, Microsoft started its new blogging service called MSN Spaces and integrated it with Windows Live Messenger and MSN Hotmail.

If a free MSN Hotmail account is not accessed in a 30-day period, then it is temporarily deactivated (all messages deleted, although not the address book). The underlying Passport account, which is tied to the e-mail address, is not released back in to the address pool for 90 days. This allows the current owner to re-activate the e-mail portion of the account and keep the address before new users can register for it; however this is now defunct. MSN Premium/MSN Hotmail Plus customers (pay service) are exempt from the expiration policy.

In the past Hotmail has offered users who have held the same account for a number of years the same exemption from deactivation. However, Hotmail changed its policy again, leaving many of those account members surprised to find that, after being told their emails would be saved, they had instead been deleted. Those emails can not be recovered.

See also

• MSN
• AIM Mail
• Comparison of webmail providers
• Webmail
• Windows Live Messenger
• Windows Live Mail
• Windows Live ID

External links

• Hotmail.com
• MSN.com
• MSN Messenger
• Microsoft to charge for Hotmail-Outlook link - article on ITworld.com announcing end of free webdav service
• Blog by Lead Program Manager, Hotmail
• "Kahuna", new Hotmail product (video)
• Microsoft's MSN Hotmail - XFS
• Gotmail Perl script which non-interactively downloads mail from hotmail

Notes

Note 1: FreePOPs website (for more information about program, program download) FreePOPs