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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."
I suspect that the road warrior might use this - independant contractors (one man companies, in other words) who need to be able to access their email from anywhere, but might also want to do stuff like sync their Palm, or manage their stuff more quickly than can be done easily through Hotmail. I do agree Microsoft isn't likely to make much money off it, though it might be profitable once it's up and running as it'll cost little to maintain over and above their regular Hotmail servers.
I don't they're selling access via Outlook.
I think they're renting the Outlook software itself. I have Outlook and can access my hotmail through it currently. That's been a feature for a while.
What they're offering here is a cost-effective model to acquire Outlook to use with Hotmail...
I am disrespectful to dirt! Can you see that I am serious?!
This is wonderful news for Mozilla. With the increasing popularity of FireFox among non-geeks, now is the perfect time to convert Outlookers to Thunderbird.
Sounds like .Mac.
Which is to say, not as crazy as it seems on the surface. If people really like the MS application, and like being able to access it anywhere, they're liable to pay.
Big if, though.
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
Since Outlook is pre-bundled with a monopoly OS, does this not constitute "Unfair Competition"?
It would seem to be a clear case of leveraging a monopoly position in one market to gain a business advantage in another market.
Isn't this why AT&T was forcibly seperated from the Regional Bell Operating Companies? AT&T had been using its monopoly on local dial tone service to favor AT&T's long distance service.
This kind of behavior is quite illegal.
I'm going to get modded down for saying something positive about Microsoft but here goes anyway...
MS is going to charge for MOOC - the Microsoft Office Outlook Connector. If you have a premium MSN subscription you can download MOOC and it will interface between the windows mail system and outlook. It allows complete synchronization between outlook and msn (and now hotmail for 59.95). anything you have in outlook - mail, notes, calendars, tasks, etc. will be synchronized with hotmail
It's a neat piece of software and works seamlessly. MOOC + Outlook > GMail.
I do not think, however, that something along the lines of a desktop application (word processor, spreadsheet, CAD application, programming suite) works with the subscription model (that's why the largest enterprise apps typically sport "service contracts" - as far as I know most will allow you to continue to use a four-version-old build of an application without continiuting to pay).
Think of it this way, software falls into two categories: tools and services. Services are things like the web, sorting already existing data, and the like. Tools are things like compilers, database construction kits, graphics programs, and the like. I don't pay Sears a subscription for my lawnmower (a tool) but I do pay a "subscription" to my barber, dentist, etc.
When I purchase a (traditional) game, spreadsheet, or even an operating system, in my mind I'm buying a tool. If I have to pay a subscription for a word processor, I'm going to buy from someone who offers it as a tool (Heck, WordPerfect (or any other "old" word processor - GeoWrite anyone?) still works just fine for wordprocessing - if I was still running a PC!).
If a software company cannot innovate enough that people will purchase new versions of its tools, that's its fault; the public should be savvy enough to not fall into the trap of paying for "software subscriptions" when software 10 years old still functions usually adequately enough.
"There are a dozen opinions on a matter until you know the truth. Then there is only one." - CS Lewis (paraprhase)
I have comcast and the email seems to work fine...I can access it via thunderbird or the web...
however friends with hotmail/yahoo/whatever often suffer delays when sending/receiving messages, etc. I can see if you don't want to change an email address for a business, but otherwise I don't see the point now that POP3 access is a "premium" feature.
and why in the world would anyone pay $60 a year for a crippled version of outlook of all things? If you are using webmail in the first place I doubt you really need something with all of the functionality of outlook.
i saw the baby, and the baby looked at me
The sad thing is millions will pay for this service.. the same millions who open up virus and spam E-mails everyday....
The sad thing is, is that Microsoft will probably make a good chunck of change on this. There are a lot of people who refuse to see that there is a world out there other than Microsoft.
Friends of my wife and I had a bunch of spyware on their PC. I cleaned up there system and then put Firefox on there. I said, "Use this instead. It's just as easy as IE, but you won't get as much malware on your system."
They said, "Ok!"
The next day I came by and somehow they figured out a way to get the IE icon back on their desktop and set up as the default browser. I was floored. Non techies can do amazing feats to fulfill their stubbornance to use second grade products and services. There's a buddy of mine who pays for some fancy MSN junk. I told him, "You can do that all for free. Yes, even on Windows" He's still a subscriber.... Sad, isn't it?
You want to know something ironic? I use GMail and I think it rocks, especially since it's free (for now). I've had a free yahoo account for ages so a lot of people still send mail there. I never considered paying for yahoo until GMail came along, now I am thinking about it. Why? So I can automatically forward my email to GMail. I have already set up my regular pop email accounts to forward to GMail.
The one big thing GMail has (aside from labels, nice interface, etc.) is the notifier. The main reason I would want POP acces is simply to always know when I have email without having to open a browser. I don't understand why the other email services don't do this. The "hacked" solutions don't count, and Outlook/Hotmail is a pain. It is so simple and it still gets people to visit the web page to view their email (i.e. ads).
!hoD
Regardless of the merit (or lack thereof) of the Outlook mail client (note that this is the full outlook client, not outlook express), this could be really really big in the small/med business world.
Exchange server is pretty expensive to set up and maintain for the average small business, but integrated, shared calendaring/scheduling/contacts/etc. in the familiar Outlook interface is a nice feature for most businesses with more than a few employees.
The roadwarrior aspect is quite nice too. If the office person can get online and add/edit appointments for the travelling person's contacts and calendar, then that's the shiz, as far as many of my clients are concerned.
I am not sure how much of exchange's functionality they will be selling with this, but if its essentially Exchange connectivity for 60 bucks a year per seat, I can think of several clients I have that will be immediately interested.
disclaimer: I support Windows, Linux and Novell, pretty much in that order of volume. I am not married to Microsoft, but not a basher either. I have over a dozen Linux boxes in the field, in active use at my clients.
Styrofoam IS biodegradable, you're just impatient!