Microsoft has officially announced that Hotmail, one of the pioneering webmail services during the 1990s, will be replaced by Outlook.com. If you are among the millions who still uses Hotmail (and wonders why your colleagues would reply to your email with a slight snicker), do not worry–you account will be auto-updated and full migration is expected to be finished by summertime.
This means that typing “hotmail.com” on your browser will soon reroute you to “outlook.com” and gain access to the Outlook.com experience. You still get to keep your “@hotmail.com” email address, but you can use that account to create multiple new @outlook.com email addresses.
Outlook.com, which was launched last July, has amassed over 60 million active users in only six months. This webmail service features Microsoft’s Metro design language–just like Windows 8–and mimics the desktop software of the same name. Microsoft has since moved Outlook.com out of the preview stage and plans to launch an aggressive, multimillion-dollar marketing campaign.
Tech journalists have written praises about Outlook.com, saying how it “can give Gmail a run for its money.” It features a very streamlined design, social integration, and auto organization capabilities such as “inbox sweep” and scheduled cleanup.
If you cannot wait for the auto-update, you can switch your Hotmail account to Outlook.com manually. Simply log into Hotmail, then click Settings at the top-right corner. The option to “convert to Outlook” should be there somewhere.
Source: NBC News
Image source: ITPro.co.uk
