You may not have noticed this, but Google is quite a dominant company. Chances are that almost everyone you know has a Google email account, a sign-in for Google Docs, and uses its search engine every day. So you do have to wonder how anyone is going to break its stranglehold - something I asked one of its email competitors today.
The chances are that you will have heard of GMX, but the chances are that you also won’t have used its services. The press release I hold before me triumphantly claims that 100,000 UK users have now signed up to its free email service at gmx.co.uk - but that’s still a few shy of Google Mail.
So, the difference. Interestingly, the first line Robin Rudat, head of GMX’s Mail Services International, came out with was privacy: “We use the idea of a piece of mail. The subject line is free [to index], but the content is like a closed letter - we can’t access this.”
Essentially, GMX is out-do-no-evilling Google.
At present, there aren’t any adverts on the service, but of course it can’t go on like that forever: GMX is part of 1and1, which prefers in general to make money from its services. We will, apparently, see adverts appearing in the second half of this year (they’ll appear as banner ads at the top of the home page (where it currently says, “Welcome! Your Ultimate Choice for Webmail”).
Another interesting approach is a weekly development cycle. GMX claims it has a highly active community of people suggesting ideas. For example, when you drag and drop an email into another folder it previously didn’t open up any subfolders. Someone pointed this out and within a week the feature was made live.
There are lots of other nice features too. The way it can pull in all your webmail accounts (not just POP3 ones like the rest can, but non-POP3 ones too) and let you reply to them as if you were replying direct from that account; integrated file storage (you get 1GB for free), so that you can save attachments direct from an email; support for all the major browsers, including Safari.
It’s all nice and good, but is it going to be enough to pull people away from Hotmail and Google Mail?
I remain to be wholly convinced - especially as there’s still no IM integration and no wider package of office applications to tie into. One thing in its favour, though, is that because far fewer people have signed up for the service it’s more likely you’ll be able to get the email address you want.
If you’ve used GMX I’d be interested to know what you think about it, and also if you’re a current Hotmail or Google Mail user what would it take to move you away? Isn’t it enough, in the end, that it just works?
Tags: email, gmx, Google, hotmail
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July 18th, 2008 at 2:05 pm
Moving away from Gmail? Probably anything that offered free (or even cheap) & reliable Exchange push for mail, calendar and contacts, combined with a decent web interface for when I need it. Oh, and the ability to have sent mail showing up as from me@mydomain.com
July 20th, 2008 at 1:25 pm
GMX is very big over here. I don’t know anyone with a Gmail email address, but a majority have had GMX accounts for a while.
Probably the only service which is more popular is web.de.
July 20th, 2008 at 11:21 pm
Pity I can’t transfer my @gmx.co.uk email from the German version (registered it before gmx.net became German only), though it’s been useful for the last 7 years and offered a bigger attachment than Gmail did until recently but that’s the only reason I’ve kept my account active… would be good to switch back
July 21st, 2008 at 12:36 pm
I started using GMX a few months ago when I needed a “throwaway” account. I have been using Yahoo Mail for many years and never bothered with GMail for privacy reasons. I find myself increasingly using GMX because of a great set of features: I espcially like the fact that I can access all my accounts via IMAP, this is something I would have to pay for (I think) with Yahoo. It’s very convenient. Especially as the webmail is a little slow but then it does still say Beta at the top so maybe that’ll change. They’re constantly adding features as well. Needless to say I won’t be opening a GMail account in the near future.
July 21st, 2008 at 1:02 pm
Thanks all - Graham, GMX does pretty much everything you mention except Exchange push (to my knowledge at least). Admittedly that’s probably a large chunk of what you want!
Very good point about privacy above. This could become a big issue (it’s already quite big) over the next few years. And as it’s a core part of Google’s business plans that could have some interesting effects…
I’m going to give GMX a proper try at some point but I still reckon people want more than just an email service. Fair to say that we’re spoilt for free webmail these days.
July 24th, 2008 at 2:03 pm
I use GMX as a mail server and can’t fault it.
I like the ability to have multiple email addresses and like the domain.
I don’t really use any of the features that much though, although its nice to see a Webmail that shows willingly the POP server addresses unlike a certain hotmail.