Microsoft has finally manage to catch up, although that’s debatable, with the other two main free e-mail providers, Yahoo and Gmail. In terms of design, if you’re familiar with Outlook (not the express version), then you’ll feel right at home with this new interface.

It operates relatively fast, no complaints there, but there are other problems, and things which definitely deserve attention, and complaints.

1. It only works in Internet Explorer

Although you can use the “classic” Hotmail interface with any browser (or at least with Firefox), the new interface only works with Internet Explorer 6 or later. And Microsoft still uses that message that makes me chuckle every time I see it, telling me I need to “upgrade” to their browser. But onwards with the other flaws.

2. You will only be able to download e-mail to an e-mail client with a Beta application and only Outlook 2003 and 2007 will support it.

That means that all of you that bought Windows, even those that bought Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate Limited Numbered Signature Edition, won’t be able to download your Hotmail e-mail, unless you purchased (or obtained by other means), Microsoft Office.

3. Three years of wait for 2GB of storage?

Although I use Gmail, and haven’t even gotten close to it’s capacity limit, we are in 2007. Gmail was released in 2004 (which was upgraded to 2GB a year later). It has taken Microsoft, which is considered the biggest software company in the world, over 3 years to try to equal what their competitors have already done a “long” time ago.

Although the interface looks very nice, and it operates nicely, the flaws and limitations of the service leave me speechless. It was a nice try, but, in my opinion, this is too little and too late.