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| Bye Bye Hotmail |
It's time to say Hello to Microsoft's new free Email account Outlook.com .It will eventually replace Microsoft's old email service Hotmail.com.
There's a new, clean look and it ties in your social media contacts. It's not too far off from what you may be used to already in Gmail.com.
Outlook.com will replace Hotmail, which Microsoft is phasing out, having owned the email service since 1998. Founded in 1996, Hotmail was among the first companies to offer free consumer email accounts online.
Citing ComScore, the Wall Street Journalreported Hotmail had 324 million unique visitors as of June. The shift to Outlook "appears to be a shot at Google's Gmail service," the Journal's Shira Ovde and Steven D. Jones write. Gmail, had about 278 million users as of June, according to the same ComScore measure.
Microsoft touted integration with social networks in its new Outlook.com service, saying the email application will connect users to contacts on Facebook and Twitter, for example. The company also said its new service was especially designed for tablet computers.
