Gmail disruption causes corporate angst
Google’s Gmail is suffering disruption, with many corporate users reporting they are not receiving emails from the webmail service, which has more than 400m users worldwide.
While Google’s Apps Status Dashboard is reporting that Gmail is working normally, it indicates the related Postini Services are suffering from disruption. Read more
You’ve got Altomail – AOL launches new service
Webmail services have seen little innovation since Google’s Gmail arrived in 2004, but Microsoft took a fresh look with Outlook.com, launched in the summer, and now AOL has unveiled Altomail.com.
Note that Microsoft and AOL are wisely choosing not to force Hotmail and AOL Mail users to switch to the new services – email users tend to be very set in their ways and Altomail looks a radically different interface in some of its views. Read more
Google Apps clocks up BBVA win
Google’s enterprise unit is jubilant after snaring its biggest customer win to date, as BBVA, the Spanish bank, said it was going to migrate all its 110,000 employees onto Google Apps.
It’s about twice the size of Google’s next biggest customer wins with Rentokil and Ahold, and there is kudos in having a security-conscious bank place its trust the company’s cloud offering. Read more
Tech news from around the web:
Google is set to launch a native Gmail application for the iPhone, according to MG Siegler. Those who have seen the app say it is “pretty fantastic,” MG Siegler reports. Read more
From Twitter accounts and national news sites to Google’s email service, several widely used sites were reported to have been compromised this week in a spree of online cybersecurity breaches.
Update: On Monday, Congressman Anthony Weiner held a press conference at which he admitted that he sent a lewd photograph on Twitter and had lied about being hacked.
You’ve still got mail
From the new Facebook Messages to AOL Mail, rising phoenix-like from the flames of email irrelevance, this week’s Personal Technology column in the FT’s Business Life section looks at the future of webmail.
Hotmail, Yahoo Mail, Gmail, Messages and Project Phoenix are all considered, along with some of the best email aids to avoid unmanageable inboxes. Read more
First Look: Facebook Messages adds email
More than a third of a billion people are active users of Facebook Messages, which made major strides to becoming a fully fledged email service on Monday.
I am among the first batch of users to get an @facebook.com address in a rollout expected to take many months. First impressions on the new features after the jump: Read more
Hotmail adds Office inbox integration
Microsoft has revamped its Hotmail browser-based email service in time for Office 2010 and the official introduction of online versions of Office applications.
The company may be trailing Google with its integration of Google Docs and Gmail, but consumers should be familiar enough with Office programs to want to give the new integrated service a try. Read more
The curious case of the UK’s missing Gmail
Google’s email service is finally returning to its original Gmail branding in the UK after a four-year absence, after Google settled a trademark dispute.
Google paid £226,324 for the intellectual property rights for Gmail to a small UK-based financial research firm, Independent International Investment Research. Read more
Google’s impatience on Apps shows through
Google has fewer than 1m paying users for its Google Apps service, and it has clearly decided that the time has come to get more serious about turning this into a mainstream business tool.
That is the conclusion to be drawn from today’s move to bring Gmail and three other apps out of their official test phase (finally). The beta designation has been a running joke for much of the five-plus years of Gmail’s life: after all, the company claims tens of millions of consumer users for individual applications like Gmail and Google Docs, along with another 15m or so students and workers who use a free version of the full suite of Apps, so the test period is clearly long over.
Yet the number of paying subscribers still only numbers in the “hundreds of thousands”, according to a spokesperson. Read more
| About this blog | Blog guide |
Richard Waters has headed the FT's San Francisco bureau since 2002 and covers Google and Microsoft, among other things. A former New York bureau chief for the FT, he is intrigued by Silicon Valley's unique financial and business culture, and is looking forward to covering his second Tech Bust.
Chris Nuttall has been online and messing around with computers for more than 20 years and since 2004 has reported from the FT's San Francisco bureau on semiconductors, video games, consumer electronics and all things interwebby.
Maija Palmer has been writing about technology for the FT since 1999 and is fascinated by cybercrime, privacy and all the other issues of the information society. Based in London, she covers European tech companies and hopes that they won't all get acquired by American rivals.
Robin Kwong is the FT's technology, media and telecoms page editor in London. Formerly he was the Taipei correspondent and wrote about the companies that manufacture the vast majority of the world's computers and gadgets. He is interested in the intricacies of the technology supply chain and how China is increasingly changing the tech landscape.
Tim Bradshaw is the FT's digital media correspondent, and has just moved from London to join our team in San Francisco. He has covered start-ups such as Twitter and Spotify, as well as the online ambitions of more established media companies, such as the BBC iPlayer. He also covers the advertising, marketing and video-game industries. Tim has been writing about technology, business and finance since 2003.
Older entries