Articles about Messaging and Collaboration

When Google first introduced the world to Gmail back in 2004, its 1GB of free storage space for messages seemed unbelievably generous. How times change. Since then of course, it’s upped the figure to 10GB, but for a lot of people that’s nowhere near enough. Businesses get a much more substantial 25GB through Google Apps, but even that can be restrictive -- especially if you have to send, receive and store a lot of large attachments.

Cloud-to-cloud backup and recovery firm Backupify can’t do anything about the lack of space for consumers, but it is offering a new free solution for firms. FreeSpace actively monitors the amount of space available in Google Apps Gmail accounts and makes it easy to free up as much space as you need, whenever you need it.

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Contrary to rumors yesterday, Microsoft has not abandoned its "Scroogled" marketing campaign, despite sharp criticisms. My colleague Wayne Williams calls the attacks against Google a "sad and frankly pathetic strategy".

If the statement a Microsoft spokesperson has given to BetaNews is any indication, the campaign will get more aggressive than it is today: "Scroogled will go on as long as Google keeps Scroogling people. We know Google doesn’t like it when the facts come out. Chapter two of the consumer education campaign has shown people care about their privacy. More than 3.5 million people visited scroogled.com, and nearly 115,000 people signed a petition asking Google to stop going through their Gmail. Stay tuned for the next chapter".

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A week ago, Microsoft formally launched Outlook.com -- its free, web-based email service -- to the public. The service had been in preview since last July.

Microsoft has for too long had a quartet of email offerings, including Hotmail, MSN and the now retired Entourage. Not surprisingly, this portfolio has been a source of confusion and complication for businesses, consumers and Microsoft brand management. By formally launching Outlook.com, Microsoft is now in the final throes of migrating to a single offering that streamlines its marketing spend and brings clarity to customers.

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If you use Hotmail then you may already know that you are moving to Outlook.com. You may not want to, but you are -- unless you plan to scrap the whole thing and head over to Gmail, Yahoo mail or another service. Microsoft officially launched Outlook overnight, but the service beta debuted six months ago; we reviewed here already.

So, to help users along in this moving process, the company posted a question and answer page appropriately titled "My Hotmail account was upgraded to Outlook.com".

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Perhaps "live" is a poor choice of words, seeing as Windows Live is dead. Early this morning, Microsoft took down the "opening soon" sign and brought Outlook -- that's the .com not the software -- out of beta. The webmail service is in "grand opening" mode with 60 million "active users" in tow, and more coming as they migrate from Hotmail.

Microsoft unveiled the email service nearly six months ago, decked out in Windows 8-logo blue and generous white space. During the beta process, Outlook ran alongside Hotmail. But with the new service launched, "we'll soon start to upgrade hundreds of millions of Hotmail users to the new Outlook.com experience", David Law, Outlook.com product management director, says.

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Skype has announced the release of Skype 6.2 for Mac and Windows.

It’s essentially a maintenance release, although Windows users will notice a new-look top toolbar. Four icons immediately above the Contacts list and Recent Conversations tab provide quick access to Home, Calling Phones, Creating Groups and Adding Contacts.

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Ever wanted, or needed, to record a voice or video conversation in Skype? There are plenty of tools out there that will do that for you, but there’s usually a catch. They either cost money or, if they are free, there’s often a limit to what you can record.

Thankfully, there’s a free app just launched for Windows users that allows you to easily record voice and video calls from Skype completely for free, with no limits or catches. It’s ridiculously simple to use, and it’s called, rather aptly, Free Video Call Recorder for Skype 1.0.2.115.

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In mid-December, as part of the "Winter cleaning" operation, Google announced plans to drop support for Exchange ActiveSync effective January 31. Microsoft condemned the decision, and quite vigorously.

Matters are changed. Windows Phone users will get a six-month reprieve, until July 31, to give Microsoft time to adapt. "The Windows Phone team is building support into our software for the new sync protocols Google is using for calendar and contacts -- CalDAV and CardDAV", Microsoft's Michael Stroh says. The company also will use IMAP for push support in order to fully replace EAS' functionality.

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Today is the big day -- Research in Motion finally took the wraps off BlackBerry 10 and two new smartphones. The Waterloo, Ontario, Canada-based company, which new name is same as the device, bleeds market share to Androids and iPhone. During fourth quarter, BlackBerry fell out of the top-5 smartphone makers, as measured by shipment share, according to IDC. The latest operating system and new handsets might just well be the last chance to regain lost ground.

CEO Thorsten Heins officially launched the much-anticipated platform during BlackBerry World. The BlackBerry Z10 comes with a 4.2-inch touchscreen display and 356 pixels per inch, whereas the BlackBerry Q10 sticks to a traditional layout featuring a physical keyboard. According to Heins, both the on-screen as well as physical keyboard provide the best mobile typing experience, but more on the two after the break.

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Twelfth in a series. It's slow week for new application releases for Windows 8. The number of new apps in the US Windows Store is 635, down from 961 the week before. While I would not - yet - say that this is a sign of things slowing down, it is definitely something that I'll pay attention on in the coming weeks.

The total number of apps in the US store this week is 25,384 of which 20,373 are free to install and 5,011 paid; that is a ratio of 4:1 in favor of free apps.

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Consumer Electronics Show is a big crazy event. There is a lot of new technology that might or might not see the light of day a couple of years down the road, and a whole lot more stuff that is rather hum-drum. Walking through millions of square feed of convention seeing thousands of cheap speakers and iPhone cases and over sized TVs can be a numbing waste of time.

That is why I like the side event, Showstoppers, which puts together a pretty good lineup of interesting tech products. While nothing jumped out as much this year as last, these are a few that piqued my interest as having some potential, or were simply interesting.

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For those of you still using Microsoft's long-standing Instant Messaging service, bad news is on the horizon. The Redmond, Wash.-based software giant revealed in early November last year, that it was planning to retire the aging Messenger and replace it with Skype "in the first quarter of 2013". Well, Microsoft is not backing down and just added the precise expiration date  -- March 15.

Microsoft sent an email detailing the process to what is most likely a considerable number of current as well as former Messenger users. I upgraded my Hotmail account to Outlook in August last year, and have not used the service in ages, yet Microsoft sent me one anyway probably emphasizing, "Hey, don't you think of using it anytime soon". There is some good news for Chinese users though -- Messenger will continue to be available in mainland China, likely due to high local demand.

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Despite recent stories of Google's big plans to take Microsoft's IT business away, the race is far from over. Today Microsoft announced a fairly big win for Office 365 and, no doubt, privately high-fived over this perceived slap in its rival's face. While Google Apps continues to progress, the city of Chicago prefers to stick with the old guard and its new cloud solution.

Michael Donlan, the Vice President of U.S. State and Local Government at Microsoft, announced today, along with Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel, that the two sides have reached an agreement that will allow the city to "consolidate its three disparate email systems into one Microsoft Office 365 environment in an effort to improve collaboration, enhance security, and provide both mobile and desktop access for anytime, anywhere productivity".

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Google released its Voice feature back in 2010 and made the service free for the first year, but has continued to extend that offer each year since then. Google Voice allows Gmail customers to make phone calls from within their account. Not only does this provide free long-distance, but it also provides some added convenience.

Now the search giant has announced that, once again, it will extend the free service for yet another year. In a very brief post from product manager Mayur Kamat, the company states that: "Many of you call phones from Gmail to easily connect with friends and family. If you're in the US and Canada, you'll continue to be able to make free domestic calls through 2013. Plus, in most countries, you can still call the rest of the world from Gmail at insanely low rates".

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Almost a week ago, part of Google's "Winter cleaning" involved dropping support for Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync on January 30, 2013. It appears Microsoft is far from happy with the controversial decision, and the company promptly retaliated by advising Gmail users to switch to Outlook for "the best email experience" across all devices.

As was the case with removing the free version of Google Apps for Business, Google's recent move is subject to criticism. But why does it matter? Google dropped the ball in Microsoft's court, as the latter uses EAS in a number of software products including Windows Phone and Windows 8/RT. The protocol allows syncing of calendars and contacts and uses push email functionality. "Killing" it leaves Microsoft customers without those features when accessing Google services.

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