Microsoft to axe Hotmail for the new Outlook.com

Hotmail has been with us for many years (since 1996!), and millions of users possess a Hotmail account globally. Now Microsoft has decided Hotmail needs a facelift, after losing a lot of popularity to rival services like GMail. The once dominant mail service is to be replaced by a new mail service from Microsoft, Outlook.com.

The new email service allows users to either stick with their current email account name and use the new Outlook service, or to move to a new @outlook.com email address and also use the new service. The outlook.com service is designed to take advantage of an internet which is a very different place to the way it was when Hotmail was first founded.

Social Media integration has been the chief focus of Microsoft’s new Outlook.com service, with integration of Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google, and soon Skype. Other features of the new service include a new user interface with less clutter, removal of display ads and search boxes, automatic sorting of emails such as newsletters and social updates, and built-in smartphone and tablet compatibility.
Microsoft also took a swipe at Google by stating “we don’t scan your email content or attachments and sell this information to advertisers,” in an attempt to win back support from privacy-conscious email users.

“We think the time is right to reimagine personal email, from the datacenter to the user experience,” said Chris Jones, Corporate VP of Windows Live at Microsoft. “So today we’re introducing a preview of Outlook.com.”

The preview can be found at Outlook.com.

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