Goodbye Hotmail: All Hotmail users are being forcefully moved to Outlook.com, which is now available worldwide along with its multimillion-dollar ad campaign [Video]
February 20, 2013 15
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Microsoft is officially taking out Outlook.com’s “preview” label, and is launching the service worldwide. This also means that Hotmail users will be slowly transitioned to the new service, albeit gradually. The good news? They’ll get to keep their email addresses — whether that’s Hotmail.com, Live.com or even MSN.com, none of that will change. The Hotmail brand, however, is going away.
The company is also launching an aggressive multimillion-dollar advertising campaign for the service, but it’s a little different from its previous “Scroogled” ads. This time the ads are meant to make people feel about using email, and hopefully Outlook.com. The first ad, which is called “Get Going,” shows that the company is off to a great start with this new message:
But Outlook.com isn’t some little startup’s email service — they’re definitely not starting from scratch when it comes to their user base. The service currently has 60 million active users (a third of which coming directly from Gmail), and there are more than 300 million Hotmail users waiting to be moved over. For comparison, Gmail has around 425 million users (as of June 2012) and Yahoo! has 281 million users (as of December 2012). If you add the existing users of Outlook.com with all the Hotmail users that are going to be upgraded, Microsoft’s newly launched email service skips right over Yahoo! and is already knocking on Google’s door. That’s a pretty impressive start.
Microsoft also plans many more upgrades to the service in the new feature, such as Skype integration for video calling.
Are you sold on Outlook.com? Or are you sticking (or switching) to another service? Comment and let us know!
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Outlook.com: Or are you sticking (or switching) to another service?
Both. Suspect the later option will win out.
I’m still not feeling outlook.com yet. Maybe I’m just too used to hotmail. Hopefully they can change a few things that I don’t like, then I’ll be good to go. Thanks.
I moved to outlook.com but i feel when I use login in id with xxxx.outlook.com, I always get error. When i use xxxx.hotmail.com id, I pass through. Not sure what is the issue.
I really like Outlook.com. I couldn’t stand all the ads in the other services so i moved on.
Funny thing, when I began to close my accounts with Yahoo, and that inevitble window/page/pop-up asking why you were leaving, my reply was ” I can no longer tolerate teh ads and junk features I never use in Yahoo mail.
Some 4-5 days later as I was closing and backing up a few important emails, I noticed Yahoo had copied the look of outlook.com. It had less clutter , but still had the ads, and junk features. A good step in the right direction but wasn’t enough for me to stick around.
Now I’m not saying that I was the catalyst, but I figure many others had most likely did something similar as I, that prompted Yahoo to make some changes.
I have been an Outlook.com user since Ashraf posted about it here, and I love it.
[@DoktorThomas]
I have given Outlook a fair try and do not like it at all. When the time comes and I am forced to accept then I will use a different email account.
I’ve used Hotmail as my main e-mail service for a very long time. It has been incredibly useful and reliable, and I appreciate MS providing it for free. Some good improvements have come along over the years, although over the past six months or so Hotmail’s spam handling has become problematic. Some outfit is sending me tons daily. Hotmail sends this to the junk directory, but also sends some legitimate promo/deals mail there too. Attempts to get Hotmail to accept wanted promo mail in my inbox, like adding addresses to Contacts, have failed to yield the desired results. Meanwhile, Hotmail should let me enter IP numbers from which all e-mails are to be deleted — not even deposited in Junk directory. For some reason it won’t. I hope Outlook,com will.
Years ago I tried a lite version of Outlook that came bundled with a PC. I thoroughly disliked it. I realize some biz-whiz types make Outlook a lifestyle motif. To each his own. As for Outlook.com, I’m determined to give it a fair, open-minded try.
My Hotmail changed over to Outlook a few weeks ago and I don’t like it at all. It takes a bit of getting used to and I’ve had trouble actually signing out a few times where it seems to have locked up or not even allowed me access to the nic icon to signout. Signing in using my old Hotmail and password works fine though. I only use the service as a secondary email anyway for registrations of giveaways etc etc so it really is no great drama how it looks or acts as long as it works fine i’ll find my way around it easily enough. Once you master DOS anything is easy after that. It’s just that once you get used to a program and it works fine I just absolutely hate changing to something that doesnt seem as good..but that’s probably just me. I just don’t cope very well with change when I consider it doesnt need it..hence i’m still on XP on my main computer and W7 on my secondary when I want to fix a problem my wife has on her W7. I guess at 61 I’d have a problem changing the wife also. My 2 cents.
will be moving to another, I cannot see well on the outlook- too much of the edges are lost to the ads
I have a feeling that these figures are no where near the true amount cos I for one have over 15 different hotmail/live email addresses and most people I know have somewhere between 3 – 5
OUTLOOK SUCKS! If I can’t have my hotmail back, I’m freaking outta here!
OUTLOOK SUCKS! If I can’t have my hotmail back, I’m freaking outta here! Microsoft is REALLY staring to make me consider Apple – that’s BAD!
<I have already changed to Gmail. Not totally my choice. I can't access/read my outlook mail at all. It worked for the first fifteen minutes. then stopped. I'm a writer so my mail is an important link. I also do not like the arrogant way the transition was done. I have not had an answer to any of my requests for help and the guides and instructions suck even more than Outlook.
This change over has totally disrupted my mail life. I have not been able to access my Outlook mail since change over.
Hotmail was not perfect but I could at least read my mail on it. After I wasted a couple days trying to access mail and trying to find a tech support number and help I gave up and went to GMail. Again, not perfect but I can read my mail again.
I have been a loyal Hotmail user since 1995 or 1996, and with this unwanted change, and horrible interface of Outlook.com I think am going to be switching to Gmail. I’ve given this a shot, and I didn’t like the last change, and now with the Outlook.com, I think I’m done.