No more access to hotmail from MS Mail Clients

In the playboy interview, Google guys pledged that they won’t hijack people’s mail to keep them stuck with GMail. In other words, proper exporting tools would be available if some user want to move on to another mailing service. They also reportedly are still deciding on whether to provide any kind of free imap or pop support (very unlikely for free users). On the other hand, Microsoft seems to be shunting out all the free stuff the users had with time on the name of spammers. First, the free chatroom were blocked from non-paying customers. And now the latest news is in that Microsoft is blocking accessing Outlook Express and MS Outlook users from accessing hotmail.

CNet reports:
Starting Monday, MSN will grant use of Web DAV tools only to paid subscribers of Hotmail, which starts at $19.95. However, Hotmail subscribers who have previously used the technology, an estimated 5 percent to 10 percent of its total 187 million customers, will be able to continue to use it for free through March or April of 2005.

Yahoo! had already taken back free pop support from Yahoo! Mail long time back and this comes as another shock to the users. Let us hope using hotmail and msn messenger stays free for some time to come.