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Are the days of free
e-mail
service
over?
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So enjoy the free e-mail service as long as it lasts
as recent developments indicate the days of free e-mail service are
drawing to a near
By Syed M. Aslam
Aug 13 - 19, 2001
Just a month ago the question would only be able to
draw a blank stare akin to "are you serious?" However, the
announcement to close its free e-mail service and replacing it with a
paid one by a popular website, usa.net, resulted in speculations that
both Yahoo, the world's most popular search engine and Hotmail, the most
used free e-mail service, would soon follow in the steps of the usa.net.
The announcement by 123india.com, an Indian portal, to start charging
its customers for e-mail services later on only seemed to cement the
speculations.
Since then the tens of millions of free e-mail users
of Yahoo and Hotmail across the world including Pakistan, a majority of
them comprising cost conscious students and individuals, have been
restless. For many of them the withdrawal of free e-mail services meant
digging deeper into their pockets to remain in touch digitally.
Like many developed countries the speculations of end
of free e-mail service have a far reaching effect in Pakistan which
houses a large number of free e-mail users. The usa.net has recently
announced that it would start charging its customers for e-mail services
from end of this month and it has sent notices to them to that effect.
The speculations were strengthened further when an Indian portal,
123india.com, said that it was closing down its free e-mail services as
well.
While the creator of Hotmail Sabeer Bhatia, an Indian
national who sold it to Microsoft for $ 400 million in 1997, has tried
to soothe the fears that Yahoo and Hotmail would not start charging for
their services as they use their free e-mail service to promote products
on online. This help them to derive numerous benefits the biggest being
making a windfall from advertisements promoting products and sales. This
in other word means that free e-mail service is beneficial for both
Yahoo and Hotmail, which helps Microsoft to derive immense benefits to
promote its products.
Backing his argument by statistics, Sabeer said that
43 per cent or 150 million of the internet users worldwide are using
Hotmail in addition some one million new e-mail accounts are opened on
Yahoo each month. Enjoying such an envious base of users both Yahoo and
Hotmail would never allow them to start charging fee for their e-mail
services. Both Yahoo and Microsoft benefits from the large base of their
respective users to advertise products and it would hardly make any
sense for them to start charging a fee for e-mail service.
The idea of charging e-mail service was also rejected
by head of Yahoo India, Deepak Chandnani adding that there are some 15
million Yahoo users in India alone. However, Sabeer Bhatia seemed to
have misjudged Microsoft as Hotmail users have reportedly received
intimation informing them about the closure of free e-mail service by
the company.
Core Business
The general manager of local ISP Cybernet,
Ansar-ul-Haque, said that the closure of free e-mail service by the
usa.net should not be equated with that of Yahoo as the core business of
the two differs significantly. Unlike usa.net Yahoo's core business has
never remain restricted to e-mail but rather as a content-based search
engine, and the most widely used at that. He also attributed the
usa.net's decision to start charging for e-mail service on purely
financial reasons, the foremost being its diminishing advertising
revenues like many other dot coms in the USA and to restructure it to
attract e-mail business from the corporate sector.
On the other hand, Yahoo enjoying the reputation of
the most widely used search engine globally has no such problem.
However, he said that Yahoo is considering a client model based on
excess. AOL, a popular digital bulletin board has already introduced the
idea of BOA (Bring Own Access) to get to its contents for a monthly fee
of $ 10. If you like to have the access as well as the content, AOL
charges a flat monthly fee of $ 20.
Ansar said that there are over 400 free e-mail
services in the world — including Yahoo, Netscape, Hotmail. The
closure of free e-mail service by usa.net due to its very own reasons
does and should not reflect on the future of other free-mail services as
much depends on an individual dot com.
Asked if the closure of free e-mail service by the
usa.net would mean any benefit for the local dot coms or ISPs, Ansar
said that the concept of free e-mail service has yet to take root in
Pakistan. The withdrawal of free e-mail service by usa.net and Hotmail
would not benefit them in the least as majority of free e-mail accounts
secondary, are accounts meaning additional e-mail address besides a
regular one. He disclosed that except for his ISP, Cybernet and another
one, Digicom no one provides e-mail services in the country, either free
or paid.
Bandwidth
Agreeing that e-mail is a value-added IT service he
said that providing free e-mail service is just not possible as it would
require high bandwidth in Pakistan which is already reeling from low
bandwidth. In addition, the local ISPs can not afford the cost to offer
free e-mail service. However, he disclosed, that ISP Cybernet and
another one Digicom do offer a paid e-mail service. Cybernet charges Rs
750 a year for e-mail service irrespective of the ISP service one is
using unlike Digicom which offers it as a part of its ISP package, he
added.
So enjoy the free e-mail service as long as it lasts
as recent developments indicate the days of free e-mail service are
drawing to a near.
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