AOL plays the e-mail game

Webmail practically started the e-mail revolution on the Internet. It let anyone and everyone to get a mail-id. Owning a domain and web space no longer was required. Hotmail started it all and Yahoo! Mail extended it. Lots of clone came by and many survived. The market rather became static with no major revolutions until GMail arrived. It has practically led to everyone to sit up and take notice the just 2megs or 10megs as mail storage is no longer cool.

They may not agree to it, but GMail made Microsoft and Yahoo! increase their webmail space to 250megs. The interesting part is that no one expected another player to enter the market at this moment when GMail has practically blown away the competition. However, AOL has other plans. They are soon releasing their webmail for everyone who is interested. Currently only AOL subscriber get access to their webmail functionality.

‘AOL Mail on the Web’ as it is now called was released in a beta version to the beta subscribers of AOL. The service is scheduled for a final public release in early 2005. It would then allow anyone to open a webmail account on their network. This would put AOL in direct competition to Microsoft’s Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail, and Google’s GMail.

This comes in wake of other new releases from their stable. They recently released a new preview version of Netscape Browser based on Firefox platform. Another browser based on Internet Explorer engine to be called AOL Browser is in development. Looks like AOL is feeling the heat from the competition as they are struggling to retain customers for their broadband and dialup services.