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Google E-Mail Service Takes Big Step Into Yahoo, MSN Turf



By Riva Richmond, Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES

NEW YORK (Dow Jones)--Google Inc.`s (GGL.XX) announcement that it plans to launch a new Web-based e-mail service signals an aggressive step into the home turf of portal giants Yahoo Inc.(NASDAQ-NMS:YHOO) (YHOO) and Microsoft Corp.(NASDAQ-NMS:MSFT) `s (MSFT) MSN, threatening to plunder bedrock users from the portals and likely forcing big changes in their e-mail services.

Google said Wednesday it`s testing a free e-mail service with huge message- storage capacity and advance search capabilities, dubbed "Gmail." Both the storage and search elements of Gmail represent big new challenges to Yahoo Mail and MSN`s Hotmail services, which charge fees for comparatively modest storage capacity and offer users more limited search and mail-organizing features.

Yahoo and MSN were already facing a stiff challenge from Google because of its dominance of Web search. Search engines have come to be key starting points for e-commerce and other online activities, and to retain their positions as top consumer destinations Yahoo and MSN have recently redoubled their focus on their own search capabilities.

For both portals, free e-mail services have also proved powerful tools for attracting and holding on to visitors. Yahoo, in particular, has leaned on the ability of its free Yahoo Mail service, among other site services, to boost registered-user numbers. These users are more likely to become subscribers to other fee-based services, Yahoo has said.

No surprise, Google sees an opportunity, too. "We have a lot of loyal Google users, and we want to provide more services to the Google user base that make sense," said Wayne Rosing, Google vice president of engineering. Google is using its search prowess to address users` struggles with escalating volumes of e-mail and a innovation-starved interface that isn`t well suited to coping with the flood.

Yahoo and MSN have long offered free Web-based e-mail accounts, but in the past two years they`ve sought to make e-mail a moneymaker in its own right by restricting the capacity of free accounts and charging monthly fees for " premium" services including extra storage and other bells and whistles. Hotmail service provides two megabytes of storage for free while Yahoo Mail offers four megabytes of storage for free.

But in the face of Google`s service, they may be forced to slash or abandon these fees, or else overhaul their offerings. That`s because Gmail will offer a gigabyte - 1,000 megabytes - of storage, which the company said is enough to store 500,000 pages of e-mail. Currently, the service is available only to test users, but Google`s Rosing said Gmail will be available to the public sometime in the "next weeks to months," depending on the success of the test period and the extent of product refining necessary.

Both Yahoo and MSN declined to make executives available for interviews. In e- mailed statements, both companies said they were committed to providing high- quality e-mail services to their users, but didn`t say how they might respond.

Yahoo said: "We will continue to be an innovative leader by integrating and delivering new features that add value to people`s lives."

Piper Jaffray Internet analyst Safa Rashtchy said Yahoo would be wise to bundle more into their premium e-mail service offering, perhaps other premium services that Google can`t offer, such as digital media offerings. He said Hotmail may feel it has more latitude to aggressively cut prices because it`s less dependent on subscriptions.

But Google, no doubt, will change the economics of free e-mail. Rosing said it has no plans to turn Gmail into a paid service in the future and believes it can support it handily using the same type of targeted text ads now seen on its search-results pages.

Search-page advertising companies like Google and Yahoo`s Overture unit are hungry for more Web pages on which to display this increasingly popular form of online advertising. Gmail offers Google a huge new source of Web pages for these ads. The idea is something that Yahoo could conceivably try to duplicate.

Rosing said Google intends to target the ads using keywords inside people`s messages to each other, further refined with data about its users. So for instance, an e-mail from a friend about which restaurant to eat in on Saturday night might prompt ads for local restaurants.

On a similar vein, once the company can gather sufficient data about its users, it may also look for ways to offer them more personalized Web-search results, Rosing said.

Insisting Google is "committed to uphold the highest level of privacy," Rosing said, "It`s a way to help organize and present your own personal information to yourself, not other people."

- By Riva Richmond; Dow Jones Newswires; 201-938-5670; riva.richmond@ dowjones.com

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