Epson Closing The Epson PhotoCenter

I just received word that Epson has decided to terminate their Epson PhotoCenter service effective April 30, 2008. The service was live for over six years and over the years some of my friends and family have used it. What I don’t get is why Epson didn’t partner with another photo sharing service and have their customer’s photos transferred. Instead they are just terminating the service and deleting the photos if you don’t retrieve them by April 30. Here is their email to customers:

For more than six years, Epson America has offered customers a free online photo-sharing service. When we originally launched the Epson PhotoCenter, there were few if any other free photo-sharing sites that featured the ability to print high resolution photos.

Over the past few years, though, more sites have begun providing similar services, so there is less need for Epson to provide this free service. Therefore, we have decided to discontinue the Epson PhotoCenter photo-sharing service.

The Epson PhotoCenter will officially close on April 30, 2008. As of today, customers will no longer be able to open new accounts. Starting February 1, existing account holders will no longer be able to upload new images. And finally, as of April 30, all photos remaining on the site will be deleted and will no longer be accessible.

They are pushing the Google Pack and the Picasa software from Google as a replacement.