Hotmail Is History

Does anybody even use Hotmail anymore? Well, Microsoft does not think so. Lookout Gmail and Yahoo, Outlook.com is here to compete. Outlook is a very familiar email tool since most of us are currently using Outlook or have been using it for years since it was introduced with Microsoft Office long ago. Outlook.com will be a convenient tool for IT departments to support and easily incorporate into their environments since Outlook has been supported for a long period of time.

Outlook.com features a rare social networking integration directly via the user’s email inbox. Users will have the ability to view status updates and content from social media sites, such as Google+, Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook. Another cool feature is Microsoft’s ability to include Outlook.com with Skype, which is similar to Google’s Talk features embedded in Gmail. I would be curious to know what security features are in place to protect users from viruses and malware since all these social sites will be accessible to users via one platform?

In addition, Outlook.com will also have the capability to sort the social networking updates from the various sites into its own categories. It also auto-detects in-coming email messages, such as newsletters, alerts, shipping updates or important emails from your contacts.

Microsoft will include free web-based versions of Word, Excel, Powerpoint and OneNote, plus additional storage space for attachments supported through its cloud-based service, SkyDrive.

Users that have previously had Hotmail accounts, MSN or Live, may keep their previous addresses when they sign-up with for Outlook.com’s services; not to mention, all their contacts and settings will sync when creating an Outlook.com account. An Outlook.com email address will be available for those who sign-up through the preview.

It will be interesting enough to wait and see how all these features work simultaneously. The security component is what we would be most curious to know about with the integration of so many social media sites. Google’s Gmail has created major competition with all its features on GDrive, which replaced Google Docs as of recently. If Outlook.com passes an IT department’s security check, it will be an easy sell for companies to integrate.

Written by IT Support and IT Consulting Professionals at FedSolutions.  Thanks for stopping by!