In the early day of the web the choices were pretty slim so most people used AOL (America online) meaning we had to use their e-mail. The constant “ You've got mail” did get on our nerves but the email service worked fine since most of the people sending us mail would be using AOL as well. Then when AOL start make changes, raised their price and more choices became available we started to migrate away.
When we started to migrate to all these new ISPs (Internet service provider) we found a new start up e-mail server named Hotmail. Hotmail was a nice upgrade and work fine until high speed became more of a standard. Then when Yahoo started their e-mail we moved to it because it was more compatible with DSL and cable connections. Soon though Yahoo started making changes and they quality of the service went down. So we moved on to Google's new e-mail service that many of us use today.
Now, after 15 years Redmond-based Microsoft is replacing Hotmail with Outlook e-mail. For those us that been die-hard Hotmail users we have known this day was coming for quite some time. We had advance notice from the Hotmail staff and some of us have even been part of a beta test for the new service for the last 6 months. The question is will this new service add enough to bring people back to let Microsoft be their e-mail provider?
One of the new features of Outlook is that is more social friendly letting you connect both your Facebook, LinkedIn and twitter accounts. If you use this option you will be able to see the tweets, updates and newsfeed of your contacts while you are reading the latest piece of e-mail from them. Using this feature will also add all of your connections from those social media sites to your messenger allowing you the ability to chat with all of your friends as you check you mail.
If you are a Windows 8 user you will notice that Outlook can be accessed from four live tiles on your start page. The mail tile will let you know how many new pieces of mail you have in your inbox and who sent them to you. That way you will know if that important piece of e-mail you have been waiting for has come in. Then you can simply click on the tile and go straight to your inbox. The other three tiles are the people, calender and sky drive giving you one click access to your contacts, appoints and Microsoft's cloud storage.
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