Microsoft should make its e-mail (Outlook) free - Daksh Bhagat, IIM Shillong
It was only last year that Microsoft
started charging its users for the outlook
facility, if they wanted free custom
email domain support. That effectively meant that
the freedom that Microsoft gave to the users to manage
a personal non-Microsoft email domain for free was taken
back. While this happened, the existing custom email
domain users were taken care of. Microsoft going ahead
with its culture, decided to provide an indefinite support
to such customers which provided for lifetime functionality
of such accounts with no provision for adding new
accounts. It also gave the customers an opportunity to
migrate to Office 365 with a free-three month subscription
to Office 365 Small Business Premium.
The earlier versions of the website helped people in
managing different mailboxes under the same roof which
was probably more convenient to use. Though the “management”
was limited to adding and removing up to 50
individual email accounts using the specialized domain,
yet, it was a great, free feature for personal use and small
businesses. Whenever customers look at online services,
they expect their experience to be convenient and of low
cost.
When one uses multiple email ids to communicate with
separate entities, it becomes all the more difficult to
manage all of them at the same time. Going by the mindset
of the end consumer, opening mails in separate tabs
and viewing and replying to each one of them can be
cumbersome as well as can lead to reduced speed and
performance of the desktop.
Microsoft positions itself as a fast paced and a challenging
corporate house, but the image it presented in front
of its loyalists through this move wasn’t very pleasant.
Emails are a part of the daily routine of customers and
they wouldn’t be really willing to pay for using the same
in any way, already keeping the increased costs of internet
usage in mind.
Microsoft should NOT make its e-mail (Outlook) free - Chahat Shah, IIM Shillong
Microsoft, following the footsteps of
Google made its email facility popularly
known as Outlook,
paid, for the
users who wanted to access accounts other than Microsoft’s
own accounts on it. Microsoft has always remained
in monopoly in the operating software market, always
coming out with innovations that are just better than its
own previous versions. So, it took a step ahead by offering
premium services.
As can be seen from the chart, outlook commands a large
market share in the email user population.
There is always
a loyal segment available in all types of markets that will
never break the vow. In such cases, the targeting is only
on the niche segment and as for a matter of fact, identifying
the right target is probably the best thing a marketer
can do and hence charging for the e-mail service is fair
enough to survive in today’s competitive market.
Whenever something is charged, customers start associating
quality with it, if at all they buy
it. There should
be no doubt about the delivery of quality from the side
of Microsoft. Hence, if the
company, because of its large
market share, is able to reap profits, owing to the fact that
it already is the market leader, a premium service should
not create a havoc.
Although even if Microsoft didn’t do this, it could have
gone beyond limits, as on a usual basis people wouldn’t
want to switch to Gmail or any other mail server unless
they are getting everything in the same window frame.
There is a continuous competition amongst these service
providers which for the end users can be majorly differentiated
on the basis of the experience they get which includes
but is not limited to speed, security concerns, etc.
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