AOL Pushes AIM Mail, Unlimited Storage

By David Worthington, BetaNews

June 6, 2005, 12:34 PM

Monday, after months of one-upsmanship between its rivals, America Online will take AIM Mail live along with offering unlimited mail storage for AOL members.. The launch coincides with the general release of the final build of AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) 5.9 ahead of AOL's migration to its next-generation Triton client.

AOL Explorer, an integrated Web browser that was introduced in beta builds, has been notably dropped from the final release.

With the update, AOL has become the first Internet service provider to take the caps off and go unlimited with Web mail. AIM Mail, meanwhile, will be delivered to 22 million active IM users and uses Screen Names as e-mail addresses. AOL has imposed a storage limit of 2 GB for non-members.

Users can access AIM Mail by invoking it through their AIM Buddy List, through the Mail panel located within the AIM Today welcome screen or by visiting AIM.com. In the release, AIM Today is once again a faceless Windows and no longer forces the installation of the AOL Explorer Web browser.

In addition to high storage capacity, AOL has included new search tools to more easily locate messages, as well as spam and antivirus protection. The same spam protection provided to AOL members serves as the backend for AIM Mail with virus protection being provided by McAfee.

The usability enhancements found in AIM Mail are derived from technology acquired from Mailblocks in 2004. They include: rich text for styled e-mail composition; drag and drop capabilities between folders; automatic inbox refreshing and audible new mail notifications. Convenience features including auto-addressing, spell checking and the ability to unsend mail sent to other AOL and AIM mail members are also included.

In addition, AIM presence awareness is prominently placed throughout the service, using AOL's trademark Running Man to signal when friends, family and coworkers are online. Microsoft business unit MSN has already riveted presence into Hotmail.

Users can organize their contacts using an address book that AOL provides. To accommodate the anticipated surge in contacts resulting from AIM Mail, AOL has raised the Buddy List's capacity to 400.

Going beyond to its exposure points in the AIM client software, AOL is providing open e-mail access from third party clients by offering IMAP support. Screen Names are used as a single sign-on for both standard and IMAP services.

As part of a system-wide auto-upgrade, AIM users will be given the option of activating their AIM Mail account. To entice users to sign up for the service AOL is fielding a sweepstakes promotion where it will give away Sony PSPs, T-Mobile Sidekicks, iPod Shuffles and a 2005 Mini Copper S.

"Big storage is a nice to have, but certainly no big need to have right now," remarked Joe Wilcox, a senior analyst with Jupiter Research. "The question is how else AOL might let consumers make use of the storage. E-Mail is one way. But AOL also offers other services, like photos, where big storage might appeal to consumers."

"So today's 'nice to have' could be tomorrows 'I must have,' depending on how AOL chooses to extend storage to its other services," said Wilcox.