Email users the world over have never had it so good. The days of limited and paid email storage appears to be finally coming to an end. While Yahoo, Google, AOL and others have been offering their members paid unlimited email storage, Rediff.com today announced it will offer its users free unlimited storage space on Rediffmail with immediate effect.
This means that existing and new Rediffmail users need not worry about deleting messages and can download video or music files to their heart’s content. Of course, US-based mail2world.com and Korean email services provider DreamWiz are among the few that already offer free unlimited email.
Ajit Balakrishnan, chairman and founder, Rediff.com said: "With the phenomenal growth of broadband penetration, usage for storage and sharing of multimedia files has increased. We have solved the problem of storage and capacity and hope that bandwidth availability will also follow."
However, there’s a cost attached to the plan. This means Rediff.com will need to have a storage and back-up infrastructure that will be capable of handling the increasing data. "We have been working on this for the last two years and have created a sturdy infrastructure. Invested enough in servers and storage systems," adds Balakrishnan.
To provide continuous back-up to users, Rediff.com portal has tied-up with service providers like VSNL, Reliance, Sify, and Bharti. Each of these rooms, which is being rented out by Rediff.com, will have high-tech server racks and the requisite security systems.
While the management is not ready to discuss figures, a back of the envelope calculation reveals that it will require terabytes of storage capacity (costing crores of rupees) to make this happen. And they have competition on hand. Google is already said to be testing a new storage service codename Gdrive or Platypus. Others are sure to follow suit soon.
This means that existing and new Rediffmail users need not worry about deleting messages and can download video or music files to their heart’s content. Of course, US-based mail2world.com and Korean email services provider DreamWiz are among the few that already offer free unlimited email.
Ajit Balakrishnan, chairman and founder, Rediff.com said: "With the phenomenal growth of broadband penetration, usage for storage and sharing of multimedia files has increased. We have solved the problem of storage and capacity and hope that bandwidth availability will also follow."
However, there’s a cost attached to the plan. This means Rediff.com will need to have a storage and back-up infrastructure that will be capable of handling the increasing data. "We have been working on this for the last two years and have created a sturdy infrastructure. Invested enough in servers and storage systems," adds Balakrishnan.
To provide continuous back-up to users, Rediff.com portal has tied-up with service providers like VSNL, Reliance, Sify, and Bharti. Each of these rooms, which is being rented out by Rediff.com, will have high-tech server racks and the requisite security systems.
While the management is not ready to discuss figures, a back of the envelope calculation reveals that it will require terabytes of storage capacity (costing crores of rupees) to make this happen. And they have competition on hand. Google is already said to be testing a new storage service codename Gdrive or Platypus. Others are sure to follow suit soon.
