Hotmail Is Officially Dead

Once among the leaders of free email accounts, Hotmail has been replaced by Outlook.com. Microsoft launched the new email service in July as a preview. It went public in February.

\"Today, we're excited to announce that we've completed upgrading all Hotmail customers to Outlook.com. Coupled with the growing organic excitement for Outlook.com, this has pushed us to over 400 million active Outlook.com accounts, including 125 million that are accessing email, calendar and contacts on a mobile device using Exchange ActiveSync. We're also pleased to announce that we're adding two new features to Outlook.com: SMTP send, so it's easier to send mail from different email addresses, and deeper integration with SkyDrive,\" Dick Craddock, group program manager for Outlook.com, posted on the company's website.

The company said that with the migration complete, it will now start adding additional features. It announced two such features today.

Outlook.com now has the ability to send emails on behalf of other email addresses, something currently supported in other email services like Gmail.

Microsoft also added deeper integration with SkyDrive, the company's cloud filing system. Outlook.com users can now add photos and other files from SkyDrive to email messages directly from Outlook.com.

Hotmail first launched in 1996 as HoTMaiL. Microsoft acquired the company a year later for nearly $400 million. It was then rebranded as MSN Hotmail. It was a rival of AOL and Yahoo, but all were eventually outpaced by Gmail.

Via clarionledger.com