Microsoft to Sell Outlook Subscription Service

An anonymous contributor writes "Boston.com is reporting that Microsoft will begin selling Outlook as a subscription service to compete with add-on services provided by Yahoo and Google. 'The new service, which costs $59.95 per year, will let people organize e-mail, contact lists and calendars in their online Hotmail accounts using the Microsoft Outlook program most often found on businesses' desktop computers.' I can't see many users paying for this service. Most Hotmail users use it because it is free, or they don't know about the alternatives. Paying for access via Outlook doesn't seem to fit with that market segment."

Comments

First they take it away

[Holi]

Now they come back and sell it to you.
OE used to have the ability to use Hotmail as one of it's providers (not sure if it still does but looking at this announcement I doubt it). It was basically an IMAP connection to Hotmail. I have used this in the past and it worked well, Now they are goign to relaunch it with a price of ~$60 per year? Don't know where I am going with this comment. It was probably the best way to use hotmail, but is it worth charging for? Well either way I'm cheap and won't be paying any money to MS/Hotmail for this fuctionality, I'll just have to be sad and think back to the days when I had it for free.

Actually it doesn't matter since I use gmail now.

Re:First they take it away

[Holi]

Ok I just did the test and I can still use OE to attach to hotmail and get all sorts of fuctionality (like managing my folders) And I did not have to pay for it. SO why again would I use this service when I can get a better one for free with OE, pluss I don't have to shell out megabucks for office to use it. (Ok I have to use the bug-laden, insecure and dangerous OE but hey there are always trade offs.)

Re:Err...

[cianduffy]

Lots. GMX provide you with WebDAV, Ireland On Line did/do. Both free. Both can be used for Outlook calanders, or iCal calanders, or Evolution calanders...

Re:Sounds familiar

[The I Shing]

I use the .mac service, but it really pays off for me to have it, since I use a Mac at work and one at home. It's nice to have a common gigabyte of space that synchronizes between the two computers. And there's the nice email with aliases that I get to set up, and some free software, and online photo albums that I can automatically publish to with iPhoto, iCal sync-ing, Safari Bookmarks sync-ing, and and stuff like that. I don't know if the $60-a-year Outlook will include any of those kinds of features.

I don't think it is IMAP

[joeflies]

I believe it is an HTTP-based proprietary access method. It's been a while since I used it, but it didn't support IMAP itself, but rather proprietary extensions in Outlook/Outlook Express. Or you could use POP when running a daemon to talk to it like HotPop

Old News

[SmokeHalo]

The Outlook subscription service was covered back in September of last year. The only difference between then and now is the price they've settled on.

Too expensive

[booch]

They're going to have a tough time selling this, especially at that price. Some friends of mine (see my sig below) have been running a low-cost secure webmail/POP/IMAPS service, and even at $14 a year, there aren't as many subscribers as they had hoped.

And Slashmail's offering is better than Microsoft's Outlook Live in many ways:

• Works with Outlook or any standards-compliant program
• No limit on email storage (Outlook Live has a 2 GB limit)
• Better spam filtering (compared to Hotmail)
• No advertisements on webmail pages
• More security features
• Uses Open Source extensively