Monday, July 12, 2004

More proof that competition rules...

Just 6 months ago there was no more boring market that the free web based email market. The two dominant players, Microsoft (Hotmail) and Yahoo, had no incentive to innovate or invest in their product offering. That all changed on April 1st when Google announced their entry into the market with Gmail. Since that announcement Microsoft has announced they will relaunch Hotmail with 250 MB of storage, and Yahoo has already relaunched their mail service with a new interface and 100 MB of storage.

In more signs that this market matters, Yahoo! announced they will acquire Oddpost. Oddpost provides web based email, photo, and news aggregation services. Does anyone think any of this would have happened if Google hadn't announced Gmail?

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