Microsoft's Outlook.com Email Product Takes On Google Gmail
Microsoft's newly revamped Outlook.com free email service is now
available to all users, some seven months after it was introduced in a
limited preview mode to replace Hotmail, Microsoft's longtime email
offering.
With the new and refreshed Outlook.com service and its updated and
friendlier user features, Microsoft hopes to continue to lure users over
from Gmail and other services. In the last six months alone, 60 million people have signed up to use new Outlook.com email accounts, according to a Feb. 18 post on the Outlook Blog by David Law, director of product management for Outlook.com.
"Last summer, we released a preview of Outlook.com,
a new modern email service from Microsoft," wrote Law. "Since then,
we've been humbled by the fast pace of adoption with over 60 million
people already actively using Outlook.com. During the same period, we've
received lots of feedback and made many improvements. Today, we're
excited to announce the next step in this journey: Outlook.com is coming
out of preview, and people everywhere can get started and give it a try
at Outlook.com."
Microsoft will transition all Hotmail.com user accounts over to Outlook.com accounts by this summer, according to Law's post.
Among the key new features of Outlook.com are a fresher and intuitive
experience on modern browsers and devices, tighter integration with
social media networks such as Facebook and Twitter, and smarter and more
powerful inboxes to handle the email needs of users, including SkyDrive
for sharing virtually anything in a single email.Outlook.com also includes new tools for handling newsletters and
commercial mail, as well as a new feature called Sweep that helps users
clear out their inbox by moving, archiving, or deleting specific email,
according to Law's post. "Outlook.com was also designed to make it easy
to send hundreds of photos, videos and just about everything people want
in a single message—all powered by SkyDrive. Nearly half of the people
using Outlook.com have already used SkyDrive to share more than half a
billion photos and Office documents."
Users of old Hotmail accounts will have all of their contacts, emails,
folders and passwords transferred to the new Outlook.com service, but
they can retain their old Hotmail.com email addresses if they desire,
according to Law. "When upgraded, they'll also get all the benefits from
the redesigned Outlook.com experience—a fresh and intuitive user
interface, lots of new features and better performance."
