Earlier this week, Microsoft launched Outlook.com to all users. This is a webmail offering that launched in in preview last year, but now all Hotmail users are being transitioned to the new experience.
We took a closer look at the new offering here. David Law, the director of product management had to say about the transition from Hotmail:
The upgrade is seamless and instant for people who use Hotmail. Everything from their @hotmail.com email address, password, messages, folders, contacts, rules, vacation replies, etc. will stay the same, with no disruption in service. 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. And we won’t ever make you switch your email address to an @outlook.com address if you don’t want to.
We expect all people using Hotmail to be upgraded by this summer. And for those that are excited to get the new benefits of the Outlook.com experience, there’s no need to wait. You can upgrade today by simply signing in at Outlook.com and we’ll take care of the rest.
Reactions to Microsoft’s move have been mixed – far more mixed than reactions to the new Yahoo homepage.
Some have wondered what the branding change will mean for Microsoft’s webmail user base.
A representative from brand insights provider Kontera tells WebProNews, “Heading into the month, Outlook is trending 22.63% higher than Gmail. Additionally, Gmail is trending 69.85% higher than Hotmail, which further validates Microsoft’s choice in choosing to focus their branding efforts on Outlook instead of rebranding Hotmail. And since their new campaign started, trending for Outlook has gone up 10.26% while Gmail went up 2.31%.”
Do you like the new experience better than Hotmail?
