ww.Hotmail.com was one of the first free webmail services. Hotmail was acquired in 1997 by Microsoft for an estimated $400M, and rebranded it as "MSN Hotmail". Hotmail was launched in 1996 to allow anyone anywhere to use email via the Web as long as they could connect to it. By 1997, spam had become a daily problem at SFU and much of it seemed to be coming from Hotmail that appeared to be used for little else. The site was invented so they say, by an imaginative guy in his front room. Yes - that's what they all say but apparently this is true!

Hotmail is based on the premise that e-mail access should be easy and possible from any computer connected to the World Wide Web. By adhering to the universal Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) standard, Hotmail eliminates the disparities that exist between different e-mail programs. Hotmail is still clunky and slow, even the new version. I'll never use Gmail, because of the big brother factor. Hotmail is behind the times in email space. I have 2.2 and climbing GB on Gmail and 1GB on Yahoo.

hotmail.com is also a solid bet because of its integration with the Passport system that Microsoft owns. Passport is a great idea because sites in the Passport network tap into the Hotmail registration database and don't require you to set up a unique username and password for any site in its network. Hotmail is actually a good service but outlook itself - sux! Has to many holes like other M$ products.

Did you know?

ww.Hotmail.com was the first major web mail system, although maybe not the biggest at the present time it still has a huge number of users. Hotmail was originally run on FreeBSD operating system. Hotmail was so successful, in fact, that Microsoft tied its Passport Web authentication scheme to the service, ensuring that everyone who started a Hotmail account was, in fact, also creating a Passport identity. Hotmail was already huge before Microsoft plopped down $400 million for it, and it continues to be the leader in growth.

The site was doubling in size each month, but it took several months to reach one million users. Until then, they were under the radar screen of many potential competitors and acquirers. Hotmail was acquired in 1997 by Microsoft for an estimated $400M.

Microsoft is also offering a mobile version of Live Hotmail to its users. It seems Microsoft is working hard to challenge its competitors Yahoo! Microsoft best have a very good reason. Microsoft makes money by showing you ads when you open up the web page. One of the reasons they do not use POP3 or IMAP is you would not be able to see the ads and they would not get money from you viewing the page.