September 28, 2007	Friday	Ramazan 15, 1428

NEW DELHI, Sept 27: Microsoft Corp flagged off Thursday customised domains for the huge market of young Indians in a bid to boost revenues from free e-mail services a decade after it acquired Hotmail.

The service, www.coolhotmail.com, to be operationalised at the weekend, uses the same Hotmail platform but will offer 200 personalised domains to choose from, said Jaspreet Brindra, chief of Microsoft's Indian subsidiary.

“More than one million Indians who come on the net every month are below 25 years of age,” Brindra told a news conference.

Hotmail, which claims to be India's second largest e-mail provider after Yahoo!, is planning an advertising blitz for the customised domains on television, radio and the Internet.“It is quite apparent that we are looking to have more revenue opportunities through the wider usage of this service,” Brindra said.

Nearly half of India's 1.1 billion people are below 25 years of age and the country boasts the world's largest English-speaking population spurring dramatic growth in the computer software industry.—AFP