LiveSide is a news blog covering Microsoft's online services, including Windows Live, Hotmail, SkyDrive, and Windows Phone.
HN links it for Microsoft service news and history, such as Hotmail POP3 rollout, SkyDrive user numbers, and Microsoft staff departures.
For those who don't know Charlie his contributions include (as listed at http://www.liveside.net/2011/08/08/charlie-kindel-to-leave-microsoft-after-21-years/):
- Founded Premier support
- Built ActiveX and DCOM
- Shipped Internet Explorer 3.0
- Drove the development of the home networking features in Windows XP
- Founded eHome and shipped the first version of Windows Media Center
- Drove the invention of Windows Smart Displays and Windows Media Center Extenders
- Served Bob Muglia as executive technical assistant as he ran the Enterprise Storage business through to him running the Server and Tools Division
- Was the driving force behind Windows Home Server
- Led the design and development of the Windows Phone 7 Application Platform
- Drove the Windows Phone 7 application platform ecosystem development and evangelism effort
I've been following this for a while and was under the impression that the POP3 access was a paid feature. Got a link to the free-ness?
nevermind:
http://www.liveside.net/main/archive/2009/03/13/pop3-technology-has-now-rolled-out-to-hotmail-customers-worldwide.aspx
Something about this sounded sketchy...
http://www.liveside.net/2013/05/06/skydrive-reaches-250-million-users-a-significant-number/
places Sky Drive in fourth, behind Dropbox, Google Drive, and ICloud....
If they add in some generators, and throw in node-webkit support, this could end up like Microsoft Volta[1].
[1] http://www.liveside.net/2007/12/05/microsoft-releases-volta-tech-preview/