Think of E-mail and Gmail comes to your mind? Well, it had
not been this way always. Ask your father or uncles and they would still be
using Hotmail. Teenagers of the late 90’s would know this pioneer in E-mail
services too. It is back now, with a new avatar and chic looks. One of the
world’s first webmail services, Hotmail was founded in 1996 by Sabeer Bhatia
and Jack Smith in Mountain View, California. In 1997, Microsoft acquired
Hotmail for about $400 million and launched MSN Hotmail, which was later
renamed as Windows Live Hotmail. The last version of this Webmail was released
in 2011 and awaits future updates. Windows Live Hotmail is being used by about
360 million users and comes in 36 different languages. Recently Hotmail was
replaced with the page, Outlook.com and as the name says, the site resembles Microsoft
Outlook. Outlook.com also features Metro Design Language, unlimited storage,
Ajax, Calendar, SkyDrive, People and Skype.
The Security Hitch
In the year 1999, Hotmail faced severe security problems,
with hackers revealing that anybody can log into a hotmail account with the
password ‘eh’. This incident was widespread and made hotmail very infamous. In
2011, another security hitch was discovered. Around this time, hotmail became
very unpopular. Thousands of hackers got access to numerous accounts and
millions of accounts were hacked. Competition to Hotmail did not appear till
2004, when Google announced Gmail. Gmail featured greater storage, speed and
better interface. Hence the mail service with advanced features really pushed
Hotmail to improve their interface and usability better.
The New Avatar
When Hotmail was re-launched as Windows Live Hotmail, it was
released as a beta version to some testers. The new interface was made from
scratch and was a vast improvement from Hotmail by being faster, simpler and
safer. Slowly updates were released to the users on better features such as
more storage space, better interface and better experience. Signing in and
access speeds were increased and user feedback was used to make it better.
Further, more themes and Instant Messaging made this
web-mail service more sought after. Users could exchange IMs with their
contacts on Windows Live Messenger. A new roll-out called “re-invented Hotmail”
had Instant Actions, scheduled sweep and other categories.
Outlook.Com
Last year, Outlook.com made its first public appearance.
Windows Live Hotmail users were able to upgrade to/downgrade from it. Since
February, Hotmail users were forced to move to Outlook.com but still have the
option of taking up either xxx@outlook.com
or retain their xxx@hotmail.com addresses.
As of May this year, 400 million users actively use Outlook.com. Aren’t you one
of them? Sign up today and feel the difference!
