Gmail Si! Microsoft No!

Here's a great example of why I'm down on Microsoft, ripped from today's headlines: http://www.amazon.com/gp/blog/post/PLNK2ZZG6E7EF3IQF

Gmail improves features for no charge and in a timely fashion. And Microsoft:

Interestingly, buried in today's news was the announcement that, Hotmail is finally adding POP3 support - eleven years after Microsoft acquired the service! We've previously covered how it's possible to jailbreak Hotmail data and transfer messages out of the ageing app.

If anything illustrates why data portability is important in web-based services (and for web workers), it's this reality; Microsoft passed an eleven year sentence of imprisonment on its users' personal data and is now paying the price with a 5% decline in its user numbers.