Feb. 19, 2013 Microsoft announced that Hotmail.com will be officially ending its decades long reign as one of the first email providers users had when they signed onto the Internet for the first time. It will be replaced with the shiny blue hues of Outlook.com which is designed after the Windows 8 "Metro" user interface. This was first announced by Read Write.
The millions of current Hotmail users will be all migrated over to Outlook.com by Summer. Microsoft stated in their current press release on Tuesday. For most die hard Hotmail users, this will be the first time to experience the new design of the Windows 8 "Metro" interface. Microsoft will continue to adopt this new "Metro" style across all of its software in the coming years.
David Law, director of Product Management for Outlook.com stated the following in his latest blog post about the immense success the testing phase of Outlook.com has accomplished for Microsoft Hotmail customers:
"We've been very excited by the adoption of the preview and how it's delivering on our promise of a new, re imagined email service, throughout the preview, we learned a tremendous amount from seeing how people used the service. Early adopters have told us what they liked, what they'd like to see next, and what we needed to do to make more people switch. And we've used that to add new features and fine-tune the services to scale. Now that Outlook.com is coming out of preview, we'll be kicking off a huge push across a number of countries around the world to drive even greater awareness and adoption of Outlook.com."
Outlook.com was first introduced in Beta form last July to select testers that actively used Hotmail.com. Microsoft stated that this dramatically revamped email system would one day be the replacement for the current Hotmail system. The new Windows 8 "Metro" style can currently be seen across Windows 8, Microsoft Sky Drive, Office Web Apps, and a redesigned MSN.
Both Hotmail.com and Outlook.com still share the same great features of social media integration, Sky Drive, and the ability to email, share pictures, and video quickly across users email contacts. Outlook.com is exactly what the doctor ordered for a fresh new approach to the old style Hotmail.com service.
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