Just three months after delivering a vastly improved version of its popular Hotmail Web email service, Microsoft has begun rolling out the first set of updates to that system, which has been rechristened as Windows Live Hotmail. These updates bump the email storage allotment for free and paid users, improve the service's user interface, and provide other improvements.
Microsoft tells me that the updates are a direct result of user feedback and that the company plans to add and change features over time going forward. The biggest change is storage space: Users of the free Windows Live Hotmail service now get 5 GB of storage space, up from 2 GB, while paid Hotmail Plus and MSN Premium subscribers get 10 GB of space, up from 4 GB. This places Hotmail ahead of Gmail (2.8 GB), but still well behind Yahoo! Mail, which offers users unlimited email storage space.
Additionally, Microsoft tweaked the Hotmail UI to conform to the attractive new Windows Live UI style, enhanced the Family Safety and anti-spam features, added compatibility with Outlook meeting requests, and more. For more information about this update, please see my overview on the SuperSite for Windows.
