Taking immense competition from Google’s popular email service Gmail, Microsoft has completely revamped its email service and announced the preview of Outlook.com – modern email designed for the next billion mailboxes. A fully revamped Hotmail service with Microsoft popular windows Metro UI and complete integration with Facebook, Twitter and other social features.
Microsoft has come a long from the first Webmail service introduced with HoTMaiL in 1996. Outlook (Outlook.com) is designed cloud first, so all of your mail is always available wherever you are. It has a fresh, clean user interface that gives user a clutter free email Inbox with header having 60% fewer pixels and there are 30% more messages visible in the inbox than the webmail most people are used to. One of the good thing is that there are no display ads or large search boxes that take up any extra space on your email inbox. Outlook.com also uses Exchange ActiveSync, so it powers your mail, calendar and people experience on your smartphone, tablet, and the latest preview of Outlook 2013 office pack.
Outlook.com preview is fully integrated with social features, connected to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google, Skype and soon, to bring relevant context and communications to your email. With this social features in place, especially Facebook you are able to chat and get live status update from your profile directly on your Outlook sidebar. With Twitter integration you will get Tweets that your friend has shared with you. With Skype integration you get the ability to chat and video call and all powered by an always up-to-date contact list that is connected to your social networks.
With new Outlook.com you can automatically sorts your messages from contacts, newsletters, shipping updates, and social updates, and with our Sweep features you can move, delete and set up powerful rules in a few, simple clicks so you can more quickly get to the email you really want. With complete integration to Office Web Apps – Word, PowerPoint, Excel and OneNote users are able to view and edit attachments without leaving inbox.With Skydrive, all your photos and documents are stored securely in cloud.
Microsoft has specially targeted Google in displaying ads on Email inblox, saying with new Outlook.com”We don’t scan your email content or attachments and sell this information to advertisers or any other company, and we don’t show ads in personal conversations“. With Outlook preferences users can fully fine tune on every aspect of the mail service.
Existing Hotmail users can simply upgrade to Outlook.com by selecting the upgrade option from their Hotmail settings or going directly to Outlook.com and choosing upgrade. You will also have an option to retain the same Microsoft account id (@msn.com, @live.com, @hotmail.com etc.)with outlook.com or get a new @outlook.com alias. For new users, just go to Outlook.com and signup for the service. Microsoft is offering virtually unlimited storage for every account for free, so grab it if don’t have one.