(18 August 2007 3:00 pm)

MUMBAI: For the first time ever, Microsoft has passed Google in the race to offer web users the most e-mail storage space.

Microsoft's Hotmail now has 5 GB of storage for general users and 10 GB for paid accounts. This capacity is more than double the previous limit and surpasses Google's 2.5 GB of storage for free Gmail accounts.

The software major, however, acknowledged the fact that only a small number of Hotmail users will ever reach their storage limit. In a blog post this week outlining this storage boost and other upgrades, Windows Live Hotmail program manager Ellie Powers Boyle wrote, "Just when you were wondering how you would ever fill up 2 or 4 GB of mail, we have given you more storage."

Microsoft said that Hotmail will also get faster in coming weeks due to performance improvements. E-mail users will also see a new 'report phishing' button and a way to combine duplicate contacts in the address book.

Presently, when Hotmail users log into their e-mail accounts, they see a page filled with news headlines and photos from Microsoft's MSN sites - not their inbox. Soon Microsoft will let users choose to go straight to their e-mail and skip the extra content. A tool for eliminating duplicate entries in the Hotmail contact list also accompanies this upgrade and provides for longer retention of messages in folders holding junk and deleted messages.

"We know this is going to be a big hit with a lot of you out there in blog land," Powers Boyle wrote.

Yahoo Inc. and Time Warner Inc.'s AOL e-mail services already include unlimited free storage. According to Nielsen /NetRatings, Yahoo has the most active users in the US among web-based e-mail services. Hotmail ranks second, followed by AOL at third and Google's Gmail at fourth.