While I get the need / desire to be in the premium mail space I don’t get their choice off brand for this venture… Everything AOL has been doing as of late has bee to parse out the pieces and this would have be a great way to offer a core piece of service at a competitive price. I can’t recall any other times the ICQ brand has been anything but free…Regardless this sounds like a good offer if you happen to be the market.
Looking to nudge its way into the mail storage market dominated by the likes of Microsoft Corp., Yahoo Inc., and Google Inc., AOL said its ICQ (I Seek You) subsidiary is rolling out a $19.99-a-year e-mail service offering 2GB of storage.
The premium ICQmail, which is powered by Los Angeles-based Mail2World Inc., will also offer bells and whistles like personal calendaring, WAP access to Web-based mail, mail-forwarding to wireless devices, and support for POP3, IMAP4 and SMTP.
Paying ICQmail users will also get access to compression technology to handle large attachments and the ability to schedule delivery of outgoing mail, create distribution groups and set up auto-responses, according to an AOL spokeswoman. [eWeek]