Microsoft offers a spiffy new service called Microsoft Office Outlook Live and what do people do … complain of course.
For the record … I do not necessarily share these opinions. I just find them entertaining to read! By the way, at the end of this article is a clip from the MSN MVP Blog outlining the Business case for MSN Premium.
Now let’s get started …
From Luken.Org:
“Microsoft notices revenue hole and quickly fixes it. It seems that M$ has just created a new revenue stream for $59 a year, per each uninformed soul. It seems that M$ is now charging to connect the Outlook email client for Hotmail (something that you could do for years till M$ pulled the plug on that freebie).”
From Daily Research:
“Microsoft Office Outlook Live costs $59.95 per year and includes Office Outlook 2003 plus 2GB of online storage, spam and virus protection and the ability to send 20MB attachments. All is not what it seems however. For years there has been a free link-up between Outlook and Hotmail, where Hotmail can be effectively run through the desktop e-mail software. But Microsoft announced at the end of September that this would stop with all new Hotmail accounts and stop for everyone else in April.”
From Software Journal:
“As long as Google keeps POP on GMail free, I find little usage for this paid module considering many excellent free mail clients are available online like Mozilla Thunderbird. With Chandler in the making, Microsoft has more headaches in the pipeline.”
From Lawrencium:
“Why would people want to pay 60 dollars a year for Microsoft’s Outlook live service when there is gmail and Mozilla thunderbird out there? MS is getting really evil! One of my new years resolution is to boycott IE for as long as I can. However, I failed today. I was showing my HS teachers some stuff online and firefox wasn’t install on there. shoot!!I really need to portable firefox on a usb key.”
From Austin Texas dot net:
“And in the face of free e-mail from Yahoo, Google, and others, Microsoft offers Outlook Live, a subscription-based online e-mail service. Microsoft still refuses to accept concepts like “Open Source” and “Free Web Mail”.”
From a DevShed reader:
“I would never pay for this service. If you need access to your Outlook contacts, calendar, e-mail, etc. when you are away from your own computer, get a palm or pocketPC.”
From a I.T. Vibe reader:
“I have heard that Microsoft will also soon (April?) remove the ability for Outlook users to accesss their existing Hotmail accounts. Thanks Microsoft! I’ve moved away – Try Thunderbird and use other free email accounts where you can access say by POP3. (which you can’t with Hotmail – (thanks again Microsoft). Also strange why not all my mails are received when sent with Hotmail (and no warning…). Would you want to pay them to get even more locked in??”
Just to be fair … here is a good case for the service from the MSN MVP Blog:
Business Case:
Finally, lets address the business case behind an MSN Premium subscription. The current cost of a yearly MSN Premium subscription is $99.95. This breaks down to $8.33 per month. Microsoft claims subscribers benefit from $350 worth of software and services. I don’t quite add it up that way, but there is certainly a good return on investment. I’ll break down the actual value of each MSN component where it is possible to do so.
- Antivirus, Firewall, Antispam: $69.99 (comparable to McAfee Internet Security Suite 7.0)
- PictureIt! Suite: $40.00 (my approximated value of the PictureIt! Library and PictureIt! Express, which do not exist in any retail package)
- Parental Controls: $39.95 (comparable to CyberPatrol)
- Approximate total value of MSN Premium Service: $150
As you can see, just figuring in the comparable purchase price of an Internet security suite, a digital image library package, and parental control software, MSN Premium more than pays for itself. Additional benefits include exclusive access to Encarta Premium (for homework or other research), access to all Major League Baseball games (via Windows Media Audio), and lots of other little goodies.
murdok is the CEO of Murdok, Inc. which publishes over 200 websites and email newsletters.
Rich also publishes his blog WebProBlog which focuses on internet business and marketing trends.
