Windows Live Hotmail Launches In Us On Monday

[Guest Reimar]

As first reported by BetaNews in mid-April, Microsoft is on track to launch Windows Live Hotmail in the United States on Monday, sources are now confirming.

The exit of the revamped service from beta is also being confirmed by an e-mail sent to testers of the service thanking them for their support and saying the product was now ready for public release. It is not yet clear whether the company is allowing the registration of live.com e-mails.

Windows Live Hotmail will offer several enhancements over the current user interface and is built upon Microsoft's AJAX platform. It includes right click menus, a paneled interface, and updated search bar. The UI is very similar to that of Outlook, the company's desktop e-mail application

[calibanjr.]

I've been beta testing it, works ok, works a bit like outlook, copies some stuff from gmail. Works for me, nothing earthshattering.

[Guest Reimar]

Latest News about the new Hotmail Live:

Microsoft Launches Windows Live Hotmail Worldwide

Built from the ground up, the new Windows Live Hotmail is now safer, more powerful and available virtually anywhere.

Microsoft Corp. today announced that Windows Live™ Hotmail®, the successor to MSN® Hotmail, is launching globally in 36 languages. The most significant upgrade for Hotmail since it pioneered the webmail industry in 1996, the new service has been built to be a vast improvement over the previous Hotmail offering, having incorporated input from more than 20 million beta testers. Windows Live Hotmail will deliver a safer, more powerful and productive e-mail experience than previous versions with flexible access via the Web, on a mobile phone or with an e-mail client. Microsoft also announced that later this month Windows Live Hotmail customers will be able to access their Windows Live Hotmail e-mail and contacts for free* using Microsoft® Office Outlook® 2003 or Office Outlook 2007 via the new Microsoft Office Outlook Connector beta.

As Windows Live Hotmail begins rolling out on May 7 and continues over the coming days, consumers will be able to visit http://www.hotmail.com to sign up for a new Windows Live Hotmail account. Current MSN Hotmail customers can also update their existing account to Windows Live Hotmail by logging into their account and clicking on the green Join Windows Live Hotmail button.

“We’re thrilled to deliver Windows Live Hotmail to the more than 280 million active MSN Hotmail accounts around the world,” said Steve Berkowitz, senior vice president of the Online Services Group at Microsoft. “Windows Live Hotmail represents an extremely compelling end-to-end e-mail experience that makes it easy for customers to get best-of-breed e-mail access across PCs, mobile devices and the Web. Windows Live Hotmail is a cornerstone online service for Microsoft and a critical part of our online advertising business because e-mail is a key point of influence for consumer purchases. We’re pleased to announce the launch of the service to advertisers in addition to consumers on the eve of the Microsoft Strategic Account Summit.”

Millions of pieces of customer feedback played an instrumental role in the development of the look and feel of the new Windows Live Hotmail. Key customer benefits include the following:

Access: Hotmail, Where You Want It

Today’s Windows Live Hotmail customers don’t necessarily sit behind a computer screen all day; they want flexibility for their busy lives. As a result, Microsoft has developed new technologies to meet their needs:

• Outlook Connector. Available later this month in 11 languages worldwide, the new Microsoft Office Outlook Connector beta will enable people to view and manage their Windows Live Hotmail account from Outlook for free, with full contact, e-mail and e-mail folder synchronization.

• Mobile. Using Windows Live Hotmail for mobile (http://mobile.live.com), customers can access their e-mail when they are on the go on a Web-enabled mobile phone or PDA. In the future, Windows Mobile® customers will receive a richer online and offline Windows Live Hotmail experience with Windows Live for Windows Mobile, which will ship with Windows Mobile v6.

• More to come. In the coming weeks, Microsoft will introduce an additional e-mail client option for Windows Live Hotmail with the release of Windows Live Mail beta, a free consumer e-mail client available via download that will be a successor to Outlook Express and Windows Mail on Windows Vista™.