When i saw the first design iteration, i was wondering where is the huge banner that takes up at least 1/4 of the screen estate, and here it comes :)

Woo.. You should have named that Microsoft e-mailScrubbed.

Wonderful I must say except for the fact that I would have also liked to see a SWEETLY annoying snapshot of a totally unwelcome "Full Page Pop-Up ad that says "coolhot(G)Mail" <in this case>" that has a mind of its own and despite not responding to our repeated clicks on the "close" button, somehow shrinks on its own accord to the top banner and obviously continues to blink there. (how naive')

:D Cheers

http://digg.com/software/What_If_Gmail_Had_Been_Designed_by_Microsoft/

I really enjoyed this post! But this you have to admit, the design would be much much better!

Miguel
www.lomelino.be

Hahaha, that's funny. I like it, well done!

While it is pretty funny I am pretty sad due to the latest fix gmail got. It has become so sloooow, not only on startup, but also in use.

Shouldn't it be 2000Kb (i.e 2 MB) or was I plain lucky to get that much space, back in those days?

just.... LOL

Oops, you are right Dev...

Edit: Upgraded the Hotmail storage in the post from 200 KB to 2000 KB :)

This is brilliant – hope the designers take a lesson. I would go to msn.ca (I'm Canadian) if their page was more usable, and less commercial... but so it goes.

Cheers,

Mungo

[Signature removed]

"Voila, we’re done... that was easy! Your potential, their passion. Coming up tomorrow: “What if Microsoft had designed Windows Vista.” Stay tuned!"

LOL, you really got me laughing there.

Brilliant--------------- now can you put up a "GMAIL BY YAHOO" also. Would be nice to see that also

This actually looks like yahoos email

how about what if microsoft acquired google and implemented google search?

Hmmm... I actually wouldn't mind something like a reading pane option. Although I have been hoping for a Google Reader type thing in GMail for a while, I doubt that's very feasable though...

hahahahahaha
best post i've read this month!

this is made of win.

don't you mean "what would have happened if *google* had designed vista" – now that would be interesting

The story is very funny, nice job!

yes, but what if google had designed gmail? instead of throwing together something that makes pine look like the mona lisa.

Okay, and what would happen if Apple designers have created Gmail, as .mac for example ?

I think it´s missing something... oh, it's the two hundreds and fifit four links that you'll never use. =)
And I don't think google would design or create such a bad thing as vista. =)

"Voila, we’re done... that was easy! Your potential, their passion. Coming up tomorrow: “What if Microsoft had designed Windows Vista.” Stay tuned!"

What do you mean? Microsoft designed Vista. So, why "what if" ?

Or did you mean "What if Google had designed Windows Vista" ?

Justin, I think that was meant to be a joking suggestion that perhaps Vista wasn't really 'designed' that much at all.

dave and Justin, I think Philipp's tongue was firmly in cheek when he said:

   "What if Microsoft had designed Windows Vista."

(i.e. What if Gmail had been designed by Microsoft? It would turn out to be a real mess... So what if Microsoft had designed Vista? Oh... they *did* design it... maybe that explains a few things then!)

Phillip you did it again. Unbelievable.

Hilarious!
btw, you're on reddit home page now!

You forgot to use the 10px Verdana font, not to always see well, what is on the screen.

oh... don't forget the ad on the bottom of all your emails!
If there's no ads it's not Microsoft™!

I love you!

If Microsoft had designed the iPod package:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=36099539665548298

Of course, you'd also have to slow the search down about 100 fold; deleiver 6 different versions, and leave really big, well-labeled security holes.

I'm a Gmail user, but this blog is losing its focus. If you want to talk about Google, excellent. Don't try to be smug by making fun of other companies' products to try to prove Google's "superiority." There is a lot that Google has crapped up, and it's starting to happen more often. There a lot of things that Microsoft and Yahoo are getting right, and that Google needs to work on, too.

Justin: Lets say this much; he did not write "What if Microsoft had designed Windows Vista" by misstake.

Really great and entertaining text. Thanks for that. :)

And an intersting discussion at http://reddit.com/info/610oo/comments/

Hat off!!!!!!! You've make my day! :)

Now, I bet that Steve Ballmer didn't get it. You should put a dancing monkey instead of that puppy. Then he might get it.
:) :) :) :) :) :)

Good post. It was fun to read and I think pretty similar to what would have happened to Gmail if it was ever released by Microsoft. :-/

<blockquote>"I’m also putting less emphasis on search, moving the box to the bottom right and replacing it with a dog"</blockquote>

Hilarious!

Oooh, looks like you touched a nerve there with someone.

Excellent!

I think what some people missed about the last sentence is that to apply the term design to anything Microsoft has done, recently anyway, is an insult to people who do design for a living.

As someone who was an early user of both Microsoft and Yahoo products I'm glad Google came along to give me a place to flee to.

Nothing wrong with a little reminder of just how bad it could get, ad yes, let's hope Google never goes in that direction and continues to learn from both its mistakes and those of others.

You should throw in the paperclip for good measure.

Except that doesn't look anything like Hotmail. I'm a user of both Gmail and Hotmail. The only difference besides the color scheme (which are both equal in my book) is the banner ad at the top of the page for MS. For Gmail, it's in my mail when I'm reading the actual mail. Outside of that, they are presented in the same manner.

Re: annoying security. Gmail assumes I'm an idiot and won't let me mail zipped EXE files to myself.

Gmail definitely blew hotmail away when it first started (and got me to switch over), but gmail hasn't done much recently. The drag-and-drop and reading pane are great features in hotmail, especially for those of us used to Outlook. And the space in hotmail isn't really an issue now, but great criticisms of a 2004 webmail client!

Dude, Hotmail was designed years ago by the Israelis and that was par for the course. The new Windows Live Mail is actually pretty slick and was the first to go to 5GB many months ago when Google was stuck at 2.x GBs. Also, Google basically alone among email ISPs didn't allow IMAP for years because it was full of assclowns unwilling to admit that its label tagging scheme was a bunch of shit that nobody wanted.

I hadn't realized that Msft Live had so many ads. I usually use Outlook Express and the difference is quite evident.
I dislike Gmail though because I don't want Google perusing my emails and pestering me with personalized ads.
I have been using Hotmail since '96 and I have yet to switch to Gmail or something better.

Oh yeah, that is a home run. Let's replace search "...with a dog." Great post.

Very scary. You guys are ill informed sheep and will lead us into damnation.

...This article is typical of the one eyed bullcrap ruining the net these days.

Just to add some perspective for you kids :

Microsoft acquires hotmail in Jan 1998.
Gmail starts private beta in 2004..

Microsoft puts bigger adds ont he pages because it doesn't READ YOUR EMAIL and store the information it gathers from you for ever and ever amen.

Of course, Gmail is a nice app – but just remember Microsoft were making money from 'free' email accounts while Larry and Sergey were playing Nintendo.

Dude!! Made my day... all so true!!

I think maybe Microsoft should get out of the email business.

microsoft does have an email service. it's called hotmail and it looks nothing like your hack job. Let's be honest, you're just a Google/Apple fanboy. Go suck it.

There is no dog in Vista by the way.

To the last line, Vista was indeed designed by Microsoft and you have to give credit when it's due; I agree though that Hotmail interface is the worst of all three major web mail services.

It looks like MS interface designers can't differentiate the difference between the desktop experience and the web experience; they seem to want to give "rich" interface for the web and seriously fail.

> "What if Microsoft had designed Windows Vista"
?

ach, i got it! :D

The problem doesn't just rest on the user experience team (design and usability teams). Windows design is most likely ruled by the business leadership, brand team, and media/ads teams. As a designer, I've had experiences with designs under such manipulative circumstances – where your hands are tied no matter how nice you make the design or how much you argue against a particular direction. Sure, they like to talk about making the user happy, but the second you push the design into customer friendly territory, someone ends up with their feelings hurt and their pride challenged. The conversations are usually something like: "If we can get that leaderboard ad below the nav – part of the IAB universal package, btw – we can make x amount of money because we'll be able to sell more ads." Or. "Those colors are too subtle and don't communicate the brand strongly enough. Can we bump up the amount of that color in the design or make the logo bigger?" Or. "<insert exec job title> doesn't like the new design. S/He thinks that we need to do the following. I understand you performed usability tests that show the opposite, but So-and-so is the <insert exec job title>."

I don't get what the joke is?? I stopped using gmail & writely because googles design sucks. Especially what they did with writely! Google couldn't design something nice looking if they tried! :p

>> microsoft does have an email service. it's called hotmail and it looks
>> nothing like your hack job. Let's be honest, you're just a Google/Apple
>> fanboy. Go suck it.

But it does look a lot like Hotmail/Windows Live email which is where MS is trying to take hotmail.

LOL..OMG-- AWESOME post. I don't see why everyone doesn't just use gmail!! GOOGLE ROCKS!!! They should just buy all the other email sites and convert them to gmail! Who needs MSFT!?!?!!?!?!

[Personal attack removed per forum rules.] this is the dumbest piece of shit ever. M$ would allow you to use it offline, so you can check your calendar there, and read old email messages, and store messages to be sent when your online.

Why are you assuming they'd break apart 'conversations', that is a great feature that was pioneered by gmail, but they haven't perfected it. I still get "RE:" seperated from the main conversation. You'd think gmail would allow you to merge and break apart messages (conversations can divide content).

Since M$ didn't add that feature, they win by having a complete suite. GMAIL on the other hand is lacking features that would make it better, and these are trival things. Makes you wonder what they're focused on

I agree with kalleanka: that's practically a dead ringer for Yahoo!'s beta e-mail client, lending even more credence to the perennial Yahoo-Microsoft merger rumor.

"After we merge, we'll only have to change a few graphics. It's a major win!"

AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

<<Microsoft puts bigger adds ont he pages because it doesn't READ YOUR EMAIL and store the information it gathers from you for ever and ever amen.>>

Are you kiding? Of course they do. They just don't tell you that they do. You think that when you delete an E-mail it gets deleted of ALL of their servers?

You can tell this post's been dugg :-)

Hilarious! I guess the POP, Forwarding & IMAP would be crippled too unless you pay for the premium. LOL!

Well I hope it's them and not the Lifehackers :D
http://lifehacker.com/software/notag/-324934.php

... "what if gmail had been designed".. if it was then i'd use it..

"I’m also putting less emphasis on search, moving the box to the bottom right and replacing it with a dog", <-- hahaha you are the best

excellent post! very funny indeed.

I think you missed something. GMail uses AJAX, which is based on technology that MS created as ActiveX objects so you could do Outlook over the web.

In other words, MS already designed this, and GMail piggybacked on the technology supporting it once it was widespread in non-IE browsers.

I don't think you have to go too far to figure out what MS would have designed.

Bill Gates and his crew are going to see this and say, "I don't get it. It looks great doesn't it?"

I think the new Yahoo email totally beats Gmail. My Gmail box is full of spams, I am surprised a 3 year old email address can be quickly caught by spamers with a moderate usage at most. My 8 years old, heavy used yahoo mail does not have all the spams like GMail does, and the user interface from yahoo is so much better than GMail, especially with its built-in RSS support.

BTW, GMail 2.0 is so slow, they ruined it.

pfff, this is a total rip of the "What if Microsoft Designed the iPod Package" video. Only this isn't nearly as funny nor done as well.

hey .. did I just a newly designed BSOD screen ??

Wonder if Omar Shahine and gang will comment on this.

and the real deal breaker ...... when you use it to send email to others – your OWN rmail will include advertising . OUCH

hilarious.

ROFL, great Job.

That's quite Microsoftive!

And now I'm physically ill, moments before lunchtime. Thanks. Thanks a lot.

The search/dog comment was the best! Thanks for the pleasent read.

Darren can you elaborate on how AJAX is based on tech developed by MS?? wtf!?

This is one of the funniest posts I have come across recently. Well done :)

This was hilarious! Hopefully they will listen to you and put less UI tax on user.

Micro$oft would also make sure to figure out a way to charge users for the pleasure of using its service. Fitty cents per note, or a dollar a gig. Something to line its coffers. Bill didn't get to be the richest man on MSearth by giving away the farm.

And don't forget every single email would be trashed if you didn't happen to log in for 30 days!

Nice job! Very funny! :-)

Hahaha. There is a lot to bash MS for, but this is totally nonsubstantive. The only ad I see in my (rarely used) Hotmail account is on the home page. There are NO ads served up when viewing specific emails. Unlike Gmail.
Hotmail has real folders. Unlike Gmail. Hotmail has drag & drop. Unlike Gmail. Hotmail has sorting. Unlike Gmail.

I still prefer Gmail over Hotmail for a number of reasons, but your post is totally off-base.

To the Yahoo email poster: I find that Yahoo has absolutely the WORST spam filter. Lots and lots gets through, and they have real problems with legitimate mail getting routed to the bulk folder. Gmail has the BEST spam filtering, IMO, with almost zero false positives and false negatives.

What a complete waste of time. Get a job, loser!

^
bump

What Gort said

"need to camouflage the checkboxes" HAHAHAHAH

I'm dissapointed with this fanboy post. You're far too overzealous in your attempt to bash Microsoft, even stretching to compare Gmail with features MSFT upgraded years ago.

Aside from a few remarks such as the checkboxes and the reading pane, your criticism is barely funny. I feel as though I've just read a 14 year old boy's first blog post – and you're trying way too hard to get onto digg.

"camouflage the checkboxes" I always found that funny.

Honestly though I LOVE my live.com email accounts. If you haven't seen it lately it is really nice.

Leave Gmail as it is and forget a hotmail looking which is barely a jerk.

I think all would like to see what happens if Lotus would design gmail.
I see error messages like "User has no randomized windows left"
and menus such as File-> Use-> Stuff-> Reply

haha, great post

MS bashing is soooo eighties... try to catch up, the new trend is to bash google ;-)

Awesome! I loved it.

:)

This guy is a genius!

but windows vista is made by microsoft... so i donno wat ur next post will be... but this 1 was good

What about the fact that you have to go down the list and select every piece of rogue spam that "somehow" gets into your inbox one at a time? I think that's a feature that needs integrating into email: the "all or nothing" checkbox. There always comes a point where you want to select EVERYTHING on a page, and not just unread mail.

Great article!

What I am wondering, though: When will Google make the new design available for Apps costumers? And why are paying Google customers often the last ones to get new features (was the same with IMAP support)???

<<(was the same with IMAP support)???>>

I don't know about you – but I got IMAP on my apps account b4 my Gmail acct. But good point anyways. I would love G2.0 on my Apps.

Maybe they want to get out the glitches and see the response b4 potentially slowing down paying and working costumers.

frankgmail.com? That's a pretty good email address. :)

Don't you mean at the end: "Tomorrow 'What if Google had designed Windows Vista?'"?

This is hilarious. Thanks for your effort, dude. Made my day :)

Frank Taylor:
Here's my interpretation: "What if Microsoft had taken the time to actually deliver a good design for Vista?"

I read it as, "what if Microsoft had designed Windows Vista, Not Apple..."

For those who still don't get it, "What if microsoft hadn't copied OS X", anywaythats my guess...well philip, who's on the right track

Wow, how can so many of you miss the point re. Vista? Let me help you. I think you're all reading it like this:

   “What if *Microsoft* had designed Windows Vista” – when it's really
   “What if Microsoft had *designed* Windows Vista”

:-)

And what did I say?

Ionut, you win, I did not read through all the 106 messages :-)

lol, that is so true. i have a windows live hotmail account, and it is slow on my laptop because it supports drag and drop features, not to mention all the ads. i have ad block now, so that gets rid of the ads, but i still use gmail as my primary email. so much faster, simpler to use, and better designed. one feature gmail is missing as far as i am concerned is folders. gmail seems to be fonder of labels than filters.

badass!

Is anyone else depressed that so many people didn't GET it?

the vista comment was a joke. if you didn't get it, forget it.

<<Is anyone else depressed that so many people didn't GET it?>>

I'll chime in as #2

I rarely, if ever, comment on blogs. However, you truly deserve a comment today and that's KUDOS!

Great post. You hit a home run!

Awesome. Microsoft should learn from this...

That was the funniest thing I read today – thanks!

Gmail by Microsoft exists. It's called Hogmail.

Good One!

Don't forget the "feature" where it only works with Internet Exploder...

er... all you did was mimic windows live mail. that's not wit. (or the least bit creative)

"what if windows had designed vista", however, will require a great deal of creativity...

Just as an aside:
You mention, in passing, that G-chat is annoying and you don't want it. Browse down to the bottom of your Gmail and select the link which turns it off.

Great post & congrats on making it on the nytimes "Technology Headlines".

OUTSTANDING! FATALITY! FLAWLESS VICTORY!

LL:
You can't remove the chat window with the new version of GMail. I use a greasemonkey script to do it.

I so hate MicroS**** :) fuj!

Gmail Rocks!

This was lovely :)

Waiting for tomorrow..

Excellent

Microsoft rarely if ever even designs anything, they are copycats. So, they would have bought google mail, just like they bought Hotmail (couple of guys from Apple sold it for $400 million to them).
Then Microsoft would have proceeded to ruin it just like this article says.

My Live mail looks great, but then I use Firefox with Adblock Plus

here's what it looks like when I first login:

http://www.thebasementlan.org/upload/LiveMail.jpg

I really like microsoft's color theme they are soothing to eyes.

"if Microsoft designed Windows Vista"

frankly, i'd be interested to see what it would look like if ANYONE had 'designed' windows vista.

i believe Microsoft 'spawned' Windows Vista.

Excellent job, again.

I forgot, "I’m also putting less emphasis on search, moving the box to the bottom right and replacing it with a dog:"

Just so dry yet so perfect!

Grow up.

One word: Lame. Stop kissing Google' ass.

ahaha~ can't wait to read tomoro's topic =p

I am constantly amazed at crp Microsoft making nowdays.

Bill keep telling how US has no talent.

Fine, keep that Indian crp.

Loved it!

Enjoyed this, thought the post started well, but then way over the top at the end.

You do realise the link to that gmasil page is already something like...
http://mail.google.com/mail/?auth=DQAAAHkAAABMq4Nt_JL-wBYnsa3JeIRhEqUpaqHtkk07rWNQjZ42f0oOoemQw496rJ6XFgfErgVeBeKrX-nCuXdW2N_B8gM8ctn0FZOy8ebRJTH7Wm6Cip_GohboWgOBjOcnHdbfmUr4JXYCkqiCrpUlXMVUEaKoavGbxBnCJn3icGMUJ_nVOA&gausr=my.email%40gmail.com

And if you wactually wanted to compare links to login...

mail.live.com
mail.google.com

...But I'm just being picky.

Now-a-days I actually prefer the Windows Live look, despite the ads. My gmail inbox comes across as cramped because of their desire to show me the last 50 emails in a small a place as possible. I just wish WLMail could load at a decent speed.

i like Gmail speed.
this is loving

Talk about ass – kissing

Made my day of swearing at prototype far more enjoyable :)

Nice Take on MS! :-)

They tryin Damn hard on the looks these days...
Giiven DISK SPACE is not a major concern!

Visual Effects to "Bytes used to display it!" ratio must SUCK big time!

go no holds barr on Vista!! lookin fwd... he he he....

Mockery at it's best.

Why did you choose to hammer Microsoft ? Yahoo is even worse than MS on spam "MANY FLASH BANNERS , SMILEY CENTRAL, VIAGRA ADDS etc etc.

Anyone who thinks there is FREE EMAIL should think twice!

:-)

mock them, you imbecile. if you dare, check out Windows Live maps.

brian s : here's a samosa, i produced it this morning just for you.

A few comments. First Gmail is actually way more cluttered than Hotmail. Second, you can go straight to the inbox in Hotmail by checking that option in options. And third and finally: Gmail has ads and Hotmail, in fact, has none. That's if you are running Adblock+ ;).

(Actually I use Yahoo Mail!, but I signed up for Gmail and Hotmail today to check them out. So these are just first impressions)

Oh, criticising Microsoft is so easy and a lot of fun. In these times it takes a lot more of courage to say something positive about them. It's like critisicing the Catholic Church and the Pope. And yet they are both very successful.

Article is Nice, it will be more Attractive if u add some useful points......

It's awsome

Ringelnatz: MS-bashing is too easy? They have been pi**ing us in the eye for over a decade, releasing crapware and charging real money for it.
After all these years of market bullying I enjoy seeing them get exposed as the second-class shysters they really are.

Hahahahahahaha....

truly awesome. and cant help myself to notice those guys at the top who are so pathetically trying to protest against this...

Microsoft has its problems, but the Gmail user interface is still pretty "beta." They got it working just enough and then seem to have mostly dropped development. For a widely-used tool from such a dominant company, it's user interface is rather underwhelming.

i like it,
but you have forgotten to say, that if you don't login every day you will lose all your emails and data, and your account will be deleted.

It looks more like the new Yahoo mail client....something to do with the merger rumours?
:))

Dude thats lame man – have u seen windows live and the new email system? It looks way better than the Sh*t u came up with. Learn some design skills before you try to mock another firm.

I'm a google fan, but mocking Microsoft cos its "sooo cool" isn't very cool when u don't really have a point. Microsoft User interfaces are actually very good compared to google – altho yes, they have banner ads instead of text.

stupid article. [personal attack removed] author.

LOL

Funny article. Smart author.

You actually get paid for this crap? and not even an original concept (just a remake of the "if microsoft made iPod videos") for an article, hopefully you'll be fired at the next internal audit you [personal attack removed].

me

stupid article. stupid author. << lol bill gates

marvelous... i salute the person who thot in this line, n cud come up with such an idea... i think the whole microsoft craze shud b brought under severe consideration n people shud start thinkin in terms of linux, solaris n not in lines of a company based on markettin n profit!!!

If people spent 1/2 the time posting something of value to the internet instead of the time they spend butchering a perfectly good screen shot with MS Paint, then the internet might just turn out to be ok after all...

Don't get me wrong – I LOVE Google! Nobody pulls off business under the auspice of "free to the community" like they do – 1/2 of the links you click are bought and paid for – not "valid search results"! But you were obviously too busy trying to figure out how to make that gradient to notice that. One of the things I commend Microsoft for is that they don't try to mask it and sell it as something else.

Do us all a favor, open up Google or whatever search engine you prefer – and look up a unique topic, come up with some original thoughts and post those – this same ‘ol typical “how could they” casuist mentality is getting old. It is almost 2008… Let’s do something new for a change!

thanks to google for gmail and all his products. I am a googlien :)

As for the Vista remark, I kinda like how the text can be read in many ways apparently, so all the interpretations are valid I think. My original intent was explained very well by one of you commenting, but let's not spoil it ;)

(As far as remarks about copying the "If Microsoft Made the iPod" video go, I think you need go all the way and accuse that video of copying the "If Microsoft Made Cars" joke years before it. However, someone else will be able to point out precursors to that one, too :))

Continuing on the subject of Vista, here's the file replace dialog – no bevel buttons, hugely verbose text, help instructions to explain clicking, and so on:

http://blogoscoped.com/files/vista-replace.png

Classic design option, same OS:

http://blogoscoped.com/files/vista-replace-classic.png

Here's one of many possible ways of trimming this to something usable:

_____________________________ [X] __

Replace file?

- temp/hello.txt (November 20)
will replace
- temp2/hello.txt (November 19)

___________________ [OK] [Cancel] __

(And you can *still* include a "+ show details" link in that dialog if you think you must have it, and you can *still* show more detailed time stamps if the files are from the same day, and you can *still* show a longer folder path if the sub-folder is ambiguous etc...)

This is just one of many heavily maldesigned cases in Vista. You'll probably find a dozen in the recent Windows Media Player or Windows Explorer alone.

It's not that Microsoft never knew this stuff, or that this company is magically rotten in all they produce 'cause they're MS. They did knew this, once, and produced many highly usable interfaces in the mid-1990s – in fact, one of their own employees (who left the company since), wrote a great explanation on this very subject:

http://joelonsoftware.com/uibook/chapters/fog0000000062.html

And:
http://joelonsoftware.com/items/2006/11/21.html

So I think we shouldn't consider this just an indicator of how bad MS designs – rather, think about how any company can go down the wrong path, likely due to falsely structured, falsely managed teams (as one commenter above pointed out, sometimes sane decisions are overriden by hierarchies), of wrong priorities, no focus on usability, perhaps a bit "web envy," and so on. Google in 2007 has a better focus on usability, though that's no guarantee that that will be the same in 2 years, 5 years from now. Already, some of their services – like Picasa Web Albums, sometimes Google Docs – have sub-optimal interfaces in parts.

ha ha ha!
Yes yes and yes!

All that is true and some...

How the hell did I survived hotmail all those years :-D

Thnax for the fun ;-)

I read the article and thought... Seriously, someone thinks that Google's Gmail is better than Microsoft Hotmail? Based on the other responses I see that most people are like me. I've had a Gmail account for quite a while, but i primarily use my hotmail account because of the superior features and interface.

I love Google for their search engine and freeware like Picasa, but Gmail needs work!

As someone else said.. I have no ads in Hotmail, and it is customizable so that I can have my subject take up the entire line (Turn off preview).

I think the labels concept is a cool idea, but not as practical as folders.

I can appreciate the humor in making fun of the renaming of Gmail to Windows Live Gmail. Microsoft does tend to run with naming themes.

Аффтар зажигает нипадеЦЦки! Пеши истЧо! =)
Pure fun :)

This article is very interesting!

zach

First I'm looking a my Homtail account now and there is a VERY large Flash advert across the top for a legal company with an animated arm in a cast...very annoying and destracting. Secondly about folders...Hotmail/LiveMail does not have REAL folders...what on earth are REAL folders? It's a computer, the data is stored on a sever somewhere. Microsoft does not print your email out for you and put it in REAL folders. What you are going on about is a graphical REPRESENTATION of how the data is organised for you. So it's not that much of a leap to IMAGINE that each label IS a folder...see. Pretty simple. Even better, unlike so called REAL folders, you can have one email in mulitiple "folders" in gmail without duplicating the email. In the real world if you wanted to put the same file in different folders you'd have to copy them. What if you recieved an email from a friend that had details of a holiday you booked together. You may have a folder for scheduled appointments, a folder for personal stuff and a folder for your online transactions so you have easy access to the links various online stores send you. With Gmail that email could have ALL three labels so it shows up no matter what you click. With hotmail you have to decide which one it falls under and stick with it. You check your personal folder to see details of your trip then remeber it actually in your schedule folder. Whats's the point? It's just text on a screen, not real paper. What would I need a real folder for? And why would I need to be able to SORT mail when if I want to see mail from a specific date I just SEARCH for the date and bang all mail from that date shows up, or I search for a sender and all mail from that sender shows up...I sort with search...it's faster!!!

I was disappointed in your article.
It failed to mention Microsoft threats that you must log in 30 days or loosing all the Britney emails your friends have sent. This usually adversely affects people in comas, undercover spies,etc
Also, Microsoft would automatically restrict the file attachments of its choosing ... then make it impossible for you to change this setting. (They would of course allow harmful html messages, images and other such to enter ur box.)

Tes

The commentary about REAL folders was unnecessary. You and everyone else knows what is meant by real folders versus labels. Some people prefer one or the other. Personally, I use GMail almost exclusively (I still have an old ISP-provided email that I can't seem to part with), however, I find the labels to be annoying. To each his own.

As for this article, it's childish. I don't often leap to Microsoft's aid. However, Google is not perfect either, and neither is GMail. As for GMail remaining "simple" when compared to Microsoft's or others' email clients, just wait until "Inbox 2.0" (http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/11/14/inbox-20-makes-me-sad/)

Being a Google fanboy is as bad as being a Mac fanboy or any other fanboy (and this is coming from someone who's about to switch to Mac).

This is a seriously stupid article. What a waste of time.

This article should be taken as light humour... That is all.

Brilliantttt!!! it was hilarious! Not that I have anything against Microsoft – but it was truly funny!! Good job!

I have GMail, but I use the POP3 option so I am spared the BS layouts of *any* webmail clients.

Remember people, just because it started as webmail doesn't mean it has to *end* as webmail. You can still us that option away from home.

As for the article, spot on.. I love it :)

Okay, I laughed. I laughed hard. Therefore this article is funny.

Please excuse me while I pick myself up off the floor. Congratulations on your brilliant skewering. It's funny because there's just enough truth in it. Really.

Anyone who uses Hotmail next to Gmail will read this and realize you're pretty bang on. This brings to mind the "If Microsoft marketed the iPod" spoof of a couple of years back.

[Signature URL removed – Tony]

"I’m also putting less emphasis on search, moving the box to the bottom right and replacing it with a dog"

Best addition to email ever.

ROFL, fantastic!

Very funny! I nearly spewed my morning coffee all over my monitor. If you took this article as anything more than a lighthearted poke, then I would hate to see how you would react to something serious. Thanks for the laugh this morning.

Boring article. Envious of MS success so spit all you want, they're still the best in software.. ;)

I want to seem intellectual so I'm going to criticize your article and call you a loser because I'm funnier and more intelligent than you, yet I *don't* have a published blog anywhere on the internet... hmm.
I am also going to bang on about Apple 'fanboys' ad-nauseam because of course if I could actually afford a Mac I wouldn't buy one... yeah right.
i also dont understand the concept of grammar, spelling or punctuation
Oh, and I'm a cretin

<<Google is not perfect either, and neither is Gmail>>

What? They are to! You know the saying – Nobody's perfect 'cept for Google.

COULD EVERYBODY CHILL!

This article makes me wonder how I managed with Hotmail all those years before I went with Gmail.
I was laughing so hard when you replaced the search bar with an animated dog (I absolutely hate Microsoft's animated help characters).
The only thing I can think that you forgot was the 30-day logon limit, or your account will be deleted. As if it's not bad enough having a filesize limit on what you can send, and a storage limit on the inbox, if you don't login and send an email every 30 days your box and username are deleted.

Microsoft definitely needs to look at their software and take some lessons from designers who have the user in mind.

I cannot believe it that I stood and read this article and all the following rants, dissaprovals and commendations. coming from the old days when all there was to offer was compuserve, I celebrate the differences as well as the similarities in these browsers and have no problems using any of them, be it excite, hotmail, gmail or my lovely ISP based mail in Outlook.
Still amazed I read the whole thing, still dont get what the problem is here.
is it the adverts, is it the graphics/texts or are we just so bored

From the 11/16 edition of code project insider:

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=printArticleBasic&articleId=9047178

Say what you want, MS bashers, but I have never had my email mysteriously disappear with Hotmail. And the last time Google Groups was broken for weeks there was not a rep to be found on the Google help forums. No thanks!

Jordan

Everyone responding seriously to this is a tool.

Gmail is a great application, if you cannot understand that... learn more about ux.

-wow-

Anonymous users who hurl insults are tools.

OMG, this article is hilarious LOL. It remembers me that wonderful video about what would happen if iPod was marketed by Microsoft (http://www.weshow.com/us/p/21400/microsoft_designs_the_ipod). Soooo nice! I can't understand why some people prefer Hotmail... its just horrible. Gmail is much better!

"Say what you want, MS bashers, but I have never had my email mysteriously disappear with Hotmail."

Nor have I, nor have I heard of anyone who has, and most of my friends and family all use GMail.

Here's the skinny. If you leave everything on someone elses servers, then you're asking for trouble, no matter who it is. Just like the LiveJournal kids who were fuming about their accounts getting deleted and losing all their awful fanfics. If it is important enough for you to get peeved about it when its gone, then you should back it up. No system is 100% fool-proof.

lol. Great insight into how Microsoft are only interested in how much money they can make. The User experience is relegated to way down their list of priorities. As evidenced by Vista and their changes to Hotmail they will continue this way until people move to other products, once they have a real choice.

"Great insight into how Microsoft are only interested in how much money they can make. "

That is what all businesses do!

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for competition. In fact, I hope someone at Microsoft reads this blog entry because there is definitely some truth to it, IMO, at least in the way many end users feel. But I somehow get the feeling most of the sentiment posted here is of the Beavis & Butthead "huh huh.. Microsoft SUX!!" persuasion.

"If it is important enough for you to get peeved about it when its gone, then you should back it up. No system is 100% fool-proof."

I won't disagree with that statement, but come on... how many *normal* (read: non-geek) people do you think back up their GMail, regularly, or at all?

nonsense

You're insulting microsoft! YOU'RE SUCH A CHILD! I don't understand satire or what a JOKE IS!
God, internet users are so stupid.

Seriously though, good job. I thought it was hilarious – microsoft bashing or not.

Don't get me wrong, I love GMail, but when I tried to tell them about an error I found in the newest version of my GMail. I actually had to use deceit to get a message to them! And that (the 'tell us good experience with Google) link took about 25 minutes to find. Otherwise their so called Contact Us links just circulate through their various trouble shooting pages, help topics, etc. etc.

I still like GMail, but at least you can send a need-to-fix note to Microsoft.

BTW: Very funny. Really

Actually, I thought it was amusing, and even made some good points.
But whatever, I see how this is gonna go...

Great Article! This could be at least a semi-annual event now . What If Microsoft Developed ... Let the flood gates open, cry havoc and let slip the dogs of merriment and mayhem!

This is a really amusing article. Of course, there's a bit of implied satire inside here, but they do bring up a few points to chew on.
By the way, what did you mean "Microsoft designing Windows Vista" (the last sentence)? Did you mean "Google designing Windows Vista" or something like that?

> Gmail currently has a chat box which I don’t use and thus find annoying

Philipp, you can swap a chat and a label box (here: https://mail.google.com/mail/?shva=1#settings/chat) so that it would stop annoying you)

You forgot to have automatic account cancellation (losing all history and storage) when users don't login frequently enough.

Benn http://blogoscoped.com/forum/115533-full.html#id115727
GMail have even shorter URL for login: http://gmail.com

[Link fixed – Tony]

That was pretty hilarious!

To those of you who want to bash the guy who posted this, get over it. Even if you like Microsoft, that doesn't mean you can't have a sense of humor.

While we're on that note, some things need to be straightened out. Typically, Microsoft's software isn't what is hated. The MSVS and the MSDN are ridiculously great achievements, no programmer can argue against that. The tools and development environment are unparalleled. What is hated about Microsoft is their form of marketing, obnoxious advertising, and downright theft from their employees.

It may be old-school, but I prefer UNIX/Linux. Maybe it isn't as user-friendly as Windows, and maybe it isn't as pretty as a Mac, but I like being able to have power over my own computer, instead of giving it to some major company.

Looks like when you modify gmail to look like hotmail you get yahoo mail.

Hilarious!

And let others' data loss be a lesson: Backup! It's simple enough with Gmail's free POP or IMAP access (while you're at it, throw that out with the Windows Live designed Gmail).

in response to some posters who said hotmail never lose their email, I have to say hotmail has lost my email plenty of times. There's even been several times when I sent myself email from another provider and it never reached my hotmail inbox. And I know other people with the same experience. Gmail, as far as I know, hasn't lost any of my email.

Funny article btw...

Dude! There's a spot opened just for you at MS!

Congratulations! Welcome to the Team!

Funny stuff, but citing 2004 storage limits is kinda irrelevant nowadays. I switched to Gmail for the 1GB, but now I use both since Hotmail (and everyone else) in the webmail biz upped their antes. I think they're up to 5 GB now, more than I'll need until the next notch up. I used to HATE having to monitor my mailboxes – 2 MB filled up fast. GMail was a real trendsetter with the storage (and awesome spam fiters), but storage is a non issue these days. And that's a good thing.

Also, the new Live mail (downloaded) program is sweet. I prefer it over all the other options when I'm on my own machines. I wish Google had one too :)

The other difference is that if Microsoft had of dropped the ball they would have acknowledged it and then patched it. Unlike Google who always seem to deny they have any problems and then quitely squirrel away trying to fix the problem their always try to tell you they dont have.

Say what you like about Microsoft but they're a whole lot more mature than Google when it comes to admitting fault.

dreadnought
ye, 3gb+ vista service pack is 'admitting fault' policy that everyone loves

God help us...don't give them ANy more ideas on how to screw with our minds!!!

people are getting fool from googles

Awesome! Theres a video on YouTube about redesigning the iPod box for Microsoft thats equally harsh and funny!

Found it!
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=36099539665548298

This is great!

thank you

You forgot the most important part! Take away the hot keys!

gmail let's you use Ctrl-I, Ctrl-U, and Ctrl-B etc, just like in MS Word, but Hotmail doesn't!! That would have been too difficult and too useful to program into a web-based email client.

"Say what you like about Microsoft but they're a whole lot more mature than Google when it comes to admitting fault. "

Sorry but that is absolutely false. Microsecret often acts like the Chinese government in admitting a problem. Just look at the recent math error in Excel. Microsidestep said it wasn't a big deal, and only affect a few users. I could go on, but I'll let you look it up yer own self. :-)

The redesigning the ipod video was originated by microsoft – they were basically making fun of themselves for their overburdened package designs with too many messages:

http://www.ipodobserver.com/story/25957

You should work for Google because you made made it look better and have options and actual news items to click on – ha, ha!!!

Brilliant!

I do agree with Norman in that it resembles Yahoo! Mail slightly. My first email account was with Hotmail, then the simplicity of Yahoo! beckoned. Enter Gmail and my faith in web-hosted mail was restored. I have never looked back (except only to ponder the loss of 5 years worth of email when Hotmail so kindly deleted my account. Thanks MicroSoft! You really do care!!) Strange that I now reserve Hotmail and Yahoo! for 'Junkmail' only......

Very, very, very good!

I am still laughing! the best laugh for a long time and so true.

Touché :-)

That was way too coooool. Great job

Great job! Now you need to take a few Microsoft products and say "What if Google did the xxxx interface". Maybe someone would get a hint.

--Chuck Tomasi
--Host of the Gmail Podcast
--Co-author of Podcasting for Dummies

I really didn't see anything wrong with hotmail, I'm just a beginner, not a geek as you guys call youselfs, what I NEED IS SIMPLE. read write reply forward and getting rid of the junk when I send to other people. the old hotmail was good foe that, I'm not a geek, I just won't easy. Roy TX

great , great ...... google is great

The "WoW" factor of Microsoft will get you back!

Go Microsoft, go!!!!!! (fuck me!)

can I hire you to redesign our in-house apps? Good job :)

hilarious, awesome article

Congratualtions, you've also just designed Yahoo's mail.

great..............
such a wonderfull joke.

<quote>Awesome! Theres a video on YouTube about redesigning the iPod box for Microsoft thats equally harsh and funny!</quote>

They forgot to add a start button on the ipod, we all need a start button this day and age – otherwise how do you start?

... at least Microsoft's mMail or whatever it would have been named would WORK and be out of beta.

Gmail's UI was fast years ago... now it's just lame. Looks like nothing, is getting slower every day and there ain't any support.

Microsoft's Live Hotmail might be little overloaded... BUT you are NOT ALONE when you have a question. They reply within hours (longest delay was 2 days!)

simply fabulas

You have described it best, although, addition from me---- there will be tremendously decrease in speed due to the passport check, visa check, nationality check and color check, third world check and so many more check i dont know from where these microsoft gurus discover some out of world check.......

Coming to think of it, some years ago Hotmail squarely refused to let me enter my Dutch name, because "de Cock" contains a word that would not pass the CDA filters. After some fiddling around I settled with Adolf Hitler-Goering, which as we all know is perfectly "decent".

Obviously MS Live Mail would block any and all mail from your friends Dick, Urbanus, Titiana and your boss Mr Peacock, to name a few.

Wow. Microsoft bad. Linux, open source, GNU, GPL blah blah blah good.
Microsloth
Windoze
Win blows
Wintendo
Wintel
Microshaft
Micro$oft
Greedy Gates
Evil Empire
Bloatware
Crapware
Have I pretty much summed up the argument here?

Poking fun at Microsoft. Wow! You're controversial! Can people do that on the internet? You're so dangerous!

Yawn.

I think, that mircosoft (new one for cynic) version of gmail would be very well integrated with vista, which is very very nice, if you look at it from far far away......

You are right cinic, microfrost in not bad.

Too bad you can buy a new pc, and unless you pay very very much you will have a pc which is much slower the the one you just changed, because 99% of its resources are spent to run vista.
Try vista with 1GB of RAM, and you will see.

To Linux users, vista is the best joke ever.

If you take a baby, and grow him in the shit all day, sooner or later he will think shit is not so bad.......
got it cycnic?

You are so right except it would only work in Internet Explorer 7 and would normally by run from Outlook, so the IE7 interface would be very basic?

Also Microsoft would not have adverts on it you would have to pay a subscription to use it ....

This is awesome...
you should have put a hotmail screenshot at the end, I think you are getting pretty close to what it is actually.

plus I most tell you that the chat feature in gmail is wonderful and if you dont need it, you can turn it off. so no reason to complain.
gmail rocks.

Actually, I do use Linux and have been for about 2 years. Mandrake/Mandriva to be exact. But I don't hate Microsoft with a hatred usually reserved for murderers. But I'm sure someone will make a comparison the Microsoft is actually worse than Hitler, and the other lemmings will drink the Kool-Aid. Whatever. Linux works better for me, so I use Linux. If you like Microsoft, then use it. If you don't like it, don't use it.

I guess I'm just past the whole anti-Microsoft thing. I have a life to live. `Scuse me while I go live it.

   Cool :-)

   The bad news is that you just gave the idea to microsoft...

   I would say stop the polution. but the M$ guys will only read the article and not the comments. :-D

  
   anyway thank for that good laugh.

I desagree with the part of darkening the gmail, it has looked like yahoomail not a microsoft webmail!

But the rest, it's true, a lot of annoying banners, many useless information on the screen!!

It’s scary – but real.
Great Blog!

Even though I love gmail, I still found this post to be the work of a lifeless loser with a constant need for attention. You dont like something? Fine. Dont use it.
BTW, I find comments about Linux being fast and Windows slow, completely baseless.
I installed fedora core on two of my laptops. Here's the story. Both actually ran slower with linux. On one laptop I had intel integrated wireless and on the other I used a zonet card. For one it took me two days to get the right packages and dependencies and make them and get it to work for the other it took me even longer and finally I had to use ndiswrapper and windows drives to get it to work. High definition audio does not work. I have to runn 855resolution to get my widescreen working. I cannot get my lexmark printer to work even after spending many days. Tons of other stuff either does not work or the workarounds are too cumbersome.
I still think Linux has potential but its not ready just yet. Nevertheless I have windows running on my widescreen laptopn and fedora on the other and I am not giving up yet.
Explore all technology, find the best out of everything instead of living a miserable life picking imperfections and dwelling on hatred.

very nice one.

Thanks for letting me my mistakes done so far.

Now I came to what i have been doing wrong till now.
So Now I have decided to close my company Microsoft.

I don't repeat these things in feature.
I know that now noone will take my windows, hotmail, Visual Studio even I give freely.

Great article! The other thing that would have to happen under "MMail" would be that the search function would rarely find what you're looking for. One thing that continues to amaze me, year after year, is that searching for files under Windows Explorer is very much a hit or miss proposition. At work, I've found that when Explorer search can't find a file that I *know* is there, firing up Cygwin and running "find . -name 'something*' " will find it. So it's clearly possible to navigate an NTFS filesystem, using Windows system calls, and find a file... but you have to use a Unix emulation window to do it. Same thing with MSN search, it just mysteriously misses stuff that Google and Ask.com will pop up on the first page of search results. Just weird.

new one: Muckgrosoft

Great article, but it missed the greatest single "feature" of hotmail that needs to be added to this MSGmail: delete any and all email if the user doesn't check in after two months.

I'm not making this up: Hotmail erased more than 8 years of emails from my account, more than 8 thousand emails gone!

Fsck'em!

Here's a somewhat-topical discussion on a related subject of "Canonical Web Designs" : http://bokardo.com/archives/canonical

(It started with hacking on Google logo, and soon turned into esoteric wordflow approximating what wannabe-philosophers might call self-tautological logick[tm], but interesting never the less. At ease.)

what if google designed bill gates?

Lovely, it was even more fun with the comment from de Cock. That is hilarious. I worked at a american company that wouldnt let us send emails containing words like "slut"; which in swedish is "end".

Haha!
Great comparison. Google will kill Microsoft with KISS.

okay, i'll admit it. i love having a giggle at Monopoly$oft's expense. (;

cynic,
if you have a life, then why did you:

1. take the time to comment on an article you found boring.

2. come back 3 hours later to refute anyone who might accuse you of not using linux.

Let's get one thing straight- You Aren't Above Anything.

And feel free to reply, I'll never know the difference.

Nice joke!
Though Windows is not too bad, I would never pay over $200 for it (plus of course the extra costs for the superior hard-ware you'll need)

[Signature URL removed – Tony]

That is so cool! It has made me wonder about "What If Google" had developed an Operating System. LOL!

I run Linux, but Google is "my friend". I love their work and GMail.

Great article!

JJMacey
Phoenix, Arizona
www.jjmacey.net

you are such an [personal attack removed], Gmail's email app kinda sucks compared to Microsoft related apps, hmmmm who also copied Microsoft web mail....Have you heard of the latest (now 2 years old) AJAX based Yahoo! Mail? Well, it kicks the pants off Gmail..........I guess you just love to hate, but that doesn’t mean that your cynicism is worthy. You must be in the camp with Google (search leader and trying to dabble in everything else, read the Yahoo Peanut Butter Manifesto, and you can envision where Google will be in just a few years, good luck!) and Apple (5% pc market share).

Awesome! Hotmail's UI sucks compared to Google's simple UI.

I think this is the post that made me realise that Google fanboyz can be just as petty and obtuse as Apple fanboyz.

Loved it! So sad, yet so... accurate!

to the detractors: just remember that all hardware sucks, all software sucks, and the rest is personal preference. My personal preference is something that is designed with the user in mind, not with the user's wallet in mind.

As for those who continue to use the term "fanboi" or "fanboyz" (which is obviously based on the japanese term yaoi) when talking about anyone who doesn't suck up to Microsoft: could it be that you really have a Japanese manga yaoi fantasy when thinking about Gates or Ballmer, but you just can't come out of the closet, so you have to project your desires onto others? Curious minds really want to know, because it seems to be only the Microserfs who use the term when referring to anyone else. Other people tend to be a little more creative.

Ah. Microserf. Creative. Sorry, I forgot myself. The two are diametrically opposed, hence the total lack of it from those who think Microsoft can do no wrong.

What if Microsoft had invented Linux?

Some "improvements".
1.- A more appealing splashscreen: White text over a blue background (aka BSOD).

2.- Improved security at login:
Welcome "root". Please enter your password, or just press ENTER.

3.- Improved internal mail system:
Welcome to linux --choose your favourite mail system here-- mail. There are over 50 GB of mail space belonging to 72 users. Would you like to erase them all and free some disk space?

4.- Genuine Linux Advantage:
Nice text or graphics message that pops up every 25 seconds.
"Microsoft has detected that this Linux machine is infested with lots of free (as in speech and as in beer) applications. Would you like to uninstall all of them?"

While I can think of lots of other fine "improvements", this would lead to a very long post.

Reading pane actually is a great idea. There is a reason most desktop e-mail clients use it. I can understand if for performance reasons gmail can't support that feature, but there's absolutely no reason you should dismiss it as a bad idea.

I have a mail account in both, but almost exclusively use hotmail.

I must say, there are not that many differences in usages between them, if ya use thunderbird...

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
That kinda defeats the "usability" angle because you aren't using it

[Line break added – Tony]

MS should have bought GOOGLE when they had the chance.

Friggin' hilarious. Since signing up for gmail, I frequently forget that Hotmail---excuse me, Windows Live Mail (TM)---exists.

"and replacing it with a dog"

Hilarious.

A feature that adds security is called a "security measure" not a "security measurement." The article is mildly funny and interesting. But if you can't use the English language properly, it diminishes the effect.

Who's the girl in the nail polish ads? She seems to have some seriously fit arms going on there!

Lets not forget Microsoft bought Hotmail.

They seem to have gradually added bloat and made it less usable.

This made me lol. Very insightful--good work! xoxoxo

???
Yahoo Mail is so much slower than Gmail, BTW, Felipe.
Less space (2G's, compared to Gmail's four.)
and flashy, but useless ads (Welcome, You are the [extremely long number] visitor!)

Had a hotmail account for a long time but ever since the release of gmail ive never gone back except to set up my hotmail to forward my email to gmail.
Quicker, more user friendly, better spam, better subject lines and easier to manage mail.

Gmail wins hands down, so glad microsoft didnt design gmail

I've used hotmail for years, but I admit, I'm a hooked gmail user. I like simple interfaces where I don't have to use 4 or 5 clicks just to create a new message. The only thing I use hotmail for now other than collecting the junk e-mail that my cousin forwards to (she really has to learn that I hate chain letters... typical 13 year old females...) that and to sign on to MSN messenger. I prefer to use GMail in conjunction with thunderbird.

I use several computers in the course of my day. Gmail's IMAP interface makes it a clear winner over anything else for me. The article was well written and the humor made it a joy. Thanks for the effort.

People:
Get advantage of this self competition:
Hot mail for all your emails.
G mail for special other people email or particular sites.
Any other email for dearest freinds mail an certain circunstances too secret to be known or... well: or: I got it! Eureka!
Invert everything from above... they all are the same.

I was cringing more and more as I scrolled down, and by the end I was almost in tears, as I was suddenly transported to this terrible, terrible parallel universe of Microsoft Gmail. Is MS totally out of touch with reality?

Probably it would have supported IMAP from the first day though and filtering Emails by their header contents, which GMail is still missing. Come on, Google is not perfect either!

After gmail first came out I started using it all the time, then about two weeks ago I decided to clean up my various e-mail accounts and while I was working on my hotmail account (which to that point had been full of business mail only with alot of spam thrown in) I realized that it really isn't a bad mail client. It doesn't have the message board functionality of gmail but it does have folders, which I prefer over the google label and archive option that I have to use with them. All in all I like them equally well now that I have cleaned them both out and now that both get about the same amount of spam.

My ass is on fire

I knew that I should not have eaten all that food last night – talk about sting ring,,, ouch.,.. I need some soothing Balm toilet roll

gmail rulzzz

what if google had designed vista?

plleeeasseeee google, make an operating system!!!!! im tired of the pain!!!!!!!!!

That was retarded. "Hey guys, I had this CRAZY idea! WHAT IF microsoft ran a free e-mail service?"
Guess what, jackass? They do.
s|your entire post|http://www.hotmail.com/|

GAY... that's all I have to say.

Talk about missing the point. He's making fun of hotmail the whole time in his post. Ever heard of satire?

While I'm sure you learned your "elite skills" from IRC (like how to do some perl style search and replacing), I feel like if you had any actual technical skills.... or ever used hotmail.... it wouldn't have been this hard for you to realize.

microsoft sucks fat balls and anything they create will suck dicks & love ass for ever

FUCK MICROSOFT

great article tho

Case and point!

Very funny.

My response is here: deadtroll.com/video/behindms.html

not even funny. Did MS steal your girlfriend or something?

You forgot something; since the backend is undoubtedly going to be switched to ASP.NET, none of the links should work if Javascript is turned off – they ALL need to be javascript-based postback links. To raise that vendor lock-in some more, the site also shouldn't function properly in anything but IE when Javascript is enabled (who wants to waste time writing cross-browser Javascript anyway?).

LOL fuck microsoft, microsoft can suck my 12" cock!!!!!

Yeah, im also waitung to win some millions and then get an A-Bomb and Blast away all the Redmond guys. And Ballmers head as a trophy... no, forget that, that ugly pigface shall burn in hell!

DIE M$,DIE!

This is not meant sarcastic or anything, I'd love to see Redmond nuked. Any terrorists in here?!

Can we have a "What if Vista were designed by Google" now? :-)

Wait, where can I sign up for this service?

This story is now on the front page of slashdot.
There are additional comments posted there.

http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/11/25/1429230

I am in agreement with John, please Google, create an operating system. Here is a great service for all you readers, opening again on Dec.4,2007 portal-feeder-review.com

[URL unlinked – Tony]

This should never become a personal battle. Everyone is out to make money, don't blame them personally. If you don't like to stuff someone puts out, fight back by not using it.
I can bet everyone here uses MS products.

Just sad

Where are the active-x controls? The Outlook-only pop? The 'are you sure you want to open this email' dialogs? The poor rendering when viewed in a non-IE browser? The pop-ups? The 3rd party advertisement messages that that you have to step through in order to register?

A good comparison ... I love this blog.... too good... but would like to add.... anytime gmail is much better and much faster

Hilarious – I especially laughed at the end when the 'search' box was replaced by a dog.

I'm surprised by the number of pro-MS trolling here. Is it guys long MSFT or they drank the Redmond HQ kool aid on their post-campus interview? "You can work on all sorts of exciting products, that already exist, but will be redesigned to take a stab at lock in"

This is hilarious. Follow ons in the alt-history genre should include "What if Microsoft designed marriage?" "What if Microsoft designed nukes?" "What if Microsoft designed the solar system?" etc. etc.

This is a incredibly stupid question... Microsoft can not design amazing things. They do not have taht imagination... It´s like asking something like ...

... and what would happen if the world was flat?

Micro$oft are run by an incredible amount of incompetence and greed. The live on the Windows monopoly and that's about it. M$ just sucks so much to inteligent people, that people working for M$, don't really realize how much they suck.

Hotmail has 5 gigs of space now.

Gmail also has over 5 GB of storage now. Eat that, Hotmail!

hahha.. LOL

I get my hotmail through Thunderbird Webmail. I haven't logged into live in months.

Not too far from accurate. Actually, dead on.

mmmmmm.......my pockets hurt.......

1. I'd love for the 14 yr olds to shut the hell up (re: references to mythical parts of male anatomy).

2. Yes, M$ and Google are both out for the money. BUT, you can't say they're the same. M$ has been, for years, run my their Marketing department. There are a number of talented engineers there, but they are ignored by the executive; Google is still primarily an engineering-driven company. Note that Google's designs tend to suck, just not as much as Microsoft's.

Well done very creative and entertaining, however one must ask themselves... How much spare time do you have?

"29,068 views" at time of writing. Cool! Is this the current record? ;-)

to all the jerks out there:
   learn to spell right before you submit your stuff here^^
But nevertheless I fully agree with the general opinion here..
sad- you just lost a bet!

hilarious, and so true...hence hilarious.
Although it must be said....I don't fully disagree with the layout of the 2nd screenshot :-)

That was HILARIOUS :) Thanks for the laughs

;) Something about the blue hit me as pretty... but the dog? Yes I agree, roflmao~

<3s thanks for this piece of your soul~ May you be blessed.

Again, good job!!!

"This should never become a personal battle. Everyone is out to make money, don't blame them personally. If you don't like to stuff someone puts out, fight back by not using it.
I can bet everyone here uses MS products."

You know what Sad, this is the excuse of every sorry, ignorant computer user on the planet. I've heard it WAY too many times to let it go now. M$ is just at it to make money. Well, so is Google, so why are all there apps awesome? Then you have M$ here that designs a crappy OS that they hail as the second coming that's like buying an overpriced jallopy with the hood welded shut. We can say what we want here, it's only the truth. M$ shouldn't even be around anymore. They do the same stuff we are doing here, only they are saying all the good computer stuff is crappy and they are God. Suck it up and smell the roses. M$ is a dying animal still biting and growling.

Guys, I believe everything related to hardware and software is constantly evolving. People come up with stupid designs but sometimes they bring a concept on the table. Some people pick that concept and add meaning to it. Then some people take that meaningful concept and add usability. How many of you who are laughing on Microsoft/Google have a programming background. If you do have it... your programming skills also evolved. If you look at the bright side there are thinkers out there who can differentiate between good design and a bad design!

incredibly funny, sharing this with my friends who still don't understand the difference between GMail and whatever it is MS calls their service now.

Hi,
interesting blog. I liked the blue shade in the last snap shot. good Work. Next we would like to see what if apple designed GMAIL...or google designed iPhone...
I have posted link to other sites too like newsful.in

[URL unlinked. -Philipp]

Funny 'cause it's true. Yahoo falls somewhere in between these two poles (more to the MS side, tho').

It GMail who started the revolution of "mailbox in gigabyte." Without it, hotmail or any other wouldn't put their attention on their users' storage space.

   If m$ designed "gmail", it wouldn't be "gmail" anymore. It become MMail instead, because your storage will NEVER reach gigabyte.

   micro$hit just SUCKS

You forgot, everytime you click on a message or a link, the full page reloads, instead of just that message.

quote:
"This should never become a personal battle. Everyone is out to make money, don't blame them personally. If you don't like to stuff someone puts out, fight back by not using it.
I can bet everyone here uses MS products."

   BTW, I'm one of "everyone here" who DOESN't use m$ products. Don't impose your limited opinion to the others. It only show how stone-blind you are.

I’m not a marketing person, but I do appreciate the significance of packaging and design. For example, I think packaging should be representative of what’s inside. When I look at an Apple product’s package, I see something I can describe as “minimal yet beautiful”. Perhaps “functionally elegant” is better phrasing. In contrast, I consider Microsoft packaging somewhat painful to behold.... (Pingback) http://dataland.wordpress.com/2007/11/26/design-and-marketing-microsoft-and-apple/

this is absolutely great
but i'm sure Microsoft would have made it even worse
maybe they would have added some stupid flash video that takes longer to load then the rest of the site...

-this should be an email forward-

--
There are 10 types of people in this world: those that understand binary and those that have a life.

The only thing you forgot was the part where the Gmail system gets a virus and it costs the users and businesses that depend on Gmail over 300 million a day for the two weeks the service is down.

Hahahah! That was hilarious! Where are the unrelated error dialogs?

Have a look at this page.
perfect answer to your post:
http://www.thinkdigit.com/forum/showthread.php?t=74140

Pretty good, I like it. But you left out one thing. Everything that comes from MS has the company name at least five times on each page. It should look a little more like this:

http://img260.imageshack.us/img260/6802/69135389fd9.png

Personally I don't want M$ OR Google reading my email.

Seriously, if you don't like it then don't use it. Quit complaining. At the end of the day microsoft is interested in the bottom line, the only way to affect that is by not buying or using their products.

I personally like using the new windows live mail (hotmail) I think it looks great. As for the speed, get off your dial up and onto broadband. Do you really care that 0.5ms rather than the 0.25ms for GMAIL. I've used hotmail and gmail in tandem, and I find GMail to load slower (especially the initial loading). I don't agree with the gmail philosophy of having a garbled inbox, I'd rather file them away. It just teaches you to be lazy!

Also, surely you're not going to have 2 gigs worth of emails. Thats nuts, save the attachments locally or something. Again another aspect of being lazy is hording.

I actaully like using Linux, Mac OSX and Windows XP and Windows Vista. Sure they all have bugs, or something that you don't like using. But you can't please everyone. Each system does something really well, somethings pretty poorly. If microsoft had fully tested everything they were going to release, then maybe instead of VISTA we would have got windows 3.11...

It reminds me of the MS ipod box (http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=36099539665548298) that was floating round a while back.

Good Ol Microsoft, still showing that design by committee is still alive and well.

"Are you crying? There's no crying in baseball!" – manager in "A League of Their Own"

Well, any expensive product that contains too many unneeded heavy "features" (itself built on bloated and virus-prone code) that would require me to subscribe to a more expensive higher-bandwidth/higher mHz service/hardware is not exactly what one could call "progressive" – especially when others already provide the same service in a simpler, faster, more friendly and secure way.

Personally I find gmail the worst email service for spam, but maybe that's just me. I have to use Thunderbird which filters out loads of spam that gmail lets through.

SOmebody has to much time.

Microsoft implements advertising with large banners and Google steals the user's privacy through tracking quite everything for later advertising. What's your choice?

Hi

I guess Hotmail has improved a lot now .........it provides 5GB space ......

looks gud 2 ...............

All the things you said are true, but let's be clear on something – GMail sucks too.

Conversation view is awful, their interface is bland, and I recieved 5 times the amount of SPAM using GMAIL than any other web based mail system.

You obviously have too much time on your hands, but I'm not even mad! That is amazing! Congratulations, you did in fact just invent hotmail!

Ok can i just say i wish gmail had your second iteration with the preview pane.

My time is precious and I hate clicking back and forth between message view and reading the message. Preview pane makes skimming many emails a very fast process.

Also whoever said they hate the threading is just a moron. Its so great to have context for every email. It means you can reply to an email later in the day and still have a clue what its about.

Hilarious

This is quite hilarious... :) BTW No_Name, did you read the privacy policy and Terms of Service of Hotmail? :) Read it carefully and after that say who's reading your mail...

Nice job.
   Too much fun.
   Keep it up.
   Till next time.
   Thanks

Yahoo mail is almost that bad without adblock. At least they haven't turned the search box into an animated character.

hahaaha... scary

This is hilarious.

By the way.....I have both a Hotmail and a Gmail account. Gmail is 100 times better than Hotmail because of one simple feature. You do not have to pay for email forwarding. I can have my Gmail forwarded to my PDA phone.

GMail has it's shortcomings but at least it isn't insanely bloated, spammy, and annoying. You remind me of when Microsoft bought Hotmail. It worked very well before Microsoft bought it and then got crappier and crappier after it became a Microsoft property. Many of the original engineers left once Microsoft got involved – especially when they started fooling around with switching from running on BSD to Windows. That totally screwed it up and made it far less efficient. Doh!

I think everyone needs to realize a few things.

First off, there IS no Hotmail. It wasn't nearly bloated, spammy, buggy, or convoluted enough... so they forced everyone to switch to Live Mail and killed Hotmail off completely. Of course Gmail is better- I use it daily as my main account- but Hotmail was passable as an alternate for those of us who've had an account there almost a decade. Not so anymore.

Secondly, Prad makes me sick. "get off your dial up and onto broadband... I'd rather file them away... surely you're not going to have 2 gigs... lazy!" Are you really that ignorant? Thousands of people are still stuck in rural communities where a pathetic 56k line is the best that is available. Message threads are logical and keep things organized, regardless of how much you like the old 'I churn mah OWN buttah!' way. And there's these new things called email attachments, see, that can be anything from high-res photos to files you need access to via multiple locations....

Thirdly, I wholeheartedly agree with the humorous article. Gmail is light, quick, functional, user-friendly and stable. Microsoft has become synonymous with useless resource-hogging bloat, counterintuitive design, gaudy ads and putting the customer last. Vista pretty much sums that up.

Try sending a mail with a large file attachement to a gmail account. 2GB of mail box space is useless if one is not allowed to receive large size attachment.

"Try sending a mail with a large file attachement to a gmail account. 2GB of mail box space is useless if one is not allowed to receive large size attachment."

Not every single piece of technology you encounter is intended for pirating or backing up your PC.

Email (in general) is not meant to be a file transfer mechanism. If you need to transfer a large file then use the proper tool (ftp, CD/DVD/MemKey, torrent, etc)

<<Conversation view is awful,>>

Conversation view is the best thing since sliced bread.

"Conversation view is the best thing since sliced bread."

Unsliced bread is the best thing since sliced bread!

Xiaofeng Z, Gmail allows a 20 MB attachment. If you can find an email service that offers more and is free, please post the info so the rest of the pirate kiddies can logon.

Really, if you need to send huge files to yourself, open up an online storage account or use one of the free ones. There are so many programs these days that allow you to connect to your home PC from anywhere, too.

I like the article. I have both Live and Gmail accounts. My Live account is my personal and Gmail is the email addy I use for dealing with online accounts with my bank, online stores, creditors, etc. I find the Gmail conversation threads to be more suited for business purposes. I can easily find a reg code for one of my Palm or Windows apps, too. (Although I will say that the Live search for webmail has gotten better.)

I use Outlook for work so Live has a "familiar" interface and bodes well for reading personal emails via the preview pane.

...hmmm, Microsoft GPFMail-- has a certain ring to it.

AOL already does all of this.

I've gotten 2 spam messages with gmail in something like a year and a half. they must do something right

What a piece of crap... Gmail is no wonder good but the shit you have said is crap beyond imagination...hehehehe, Microsoft – The focus is on THE FUTURE...........

Very kool. Loved it.

if microsoft designed gmail, it would be hotmail. I do not see the interest of that...

have you used gmail and google talk behind corporate firewalls, it is awefully slow, compared to others.

Hehe. That was quite funny, but said because it's true. Microsoft's so...ughy and spammy and in-your-face-y. And Hotmail's stupid as because it tells you nothing except that you have no messages selected. The old layout was better because it actually gave most of the subject heading. And all teh loading takes ages. Good job!

Hotmail + Yahoo Mail + AOL + all others together does not worth Gmail!
Gmail is KISS
"KeepItSimpleStupid"
i have no Spam
ads are not bothering
fastest email ever
free imap? who else is doing that for free?
etc
etc
etc
Gmail rules!

ahahah

iwould also delete your contacts and forget your saved passwords

Héhé, what a joke ;)

And of course the microsoft gmail would require the msn passport...

Hifrickinlarious! And true...that's just scarey.

No, it's incredible!!!! Oh No....