Microsoft still thinks that their web products should be accessible to only Windows users mostly only on Internet Explorer. I am talking about Microsoft’s one of the few popular web products, Hotmail. As we know that Hotmail has two versions as with most of the web based email clients like Gmail and Yahoo! Mail i.e. one is Ajax based and other based on simple HTML. Ajax based email clients are more popular as compared to non-Ajax based. Microsoft has not offered full version of the Hotmail in the following scenarios from my usage experience:

• When you are running Linux (I have tested on Ubuntu Hardy Heron) or other non-Microsoft operating systems (I have not tested on Mac)
• When you are running Google Chrome and Apple Safari

I think both of the above mentioned scenarios are feasible for running any Ajax based email clients independent of any operating systems. This is what makes web based applications different and cool from those old desktop based apps. I just want Microsoft to create web products keeping in mind that they are independent of operating system and browsers. Both Google Chrome and Apple Safari are based on Apple WebKit rendering framework and most of the popular web based Ajax email clients do support both these browsers. So, why not Microsoft? This may be also one of the reason that Microsoft is still far behind the world of web innovation as compared to Yahoo! and Google and also start-ups like Facebook and LinkedIn.

Hotmail running on Mozilla Firefox 3.03 (Ubuntu Hardy Heron)

Hotmail running on Mozilla Firefox 3.03 (Windows Vista) - Full version of Hotmail

Hotmail running on Google Chrome (Windows Vista)

Hotmail running on Apple Safari (Windows Vista)

Recommendation: Wake up Microsoft!!!

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It is really sad that Microsoft’s popular webmail service hotmail does not work on Mozilla Firefox and Apple Safari. When I mean it does not work, hotmail’s new version does not work on Firefox. Not so cool Microsoft indeed. This particular stuff may also prove that Microsoft just can not compete against Google and Yahoo! in web based apps.

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