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Outlook.com graduates from preview, replaces Hotmail as flagship email service


After spending over half a year in development, Microsoft’s Outlook.com email is finally graduating from preview and will gradually replace Hotmail as the company's flagship email service.
 
"As the default personal email for Microsoft, Outlook.com is designed for modern browsers and devices," shared Tovia Va’aelua, Microsoft Office Division Lead, Microsoft Philippines. "It its smart and powerful, it keeps you connected to friends and co-workers wherever they are, and it prioritizes privacy, which allows you to be in control of how your personal data is used."
 
The move is a bold one for Microsoft, which touts the service as "email reimagined".
 
The company explained that Outlook.com, which was launched in July 2012, was open to the general public in "preview" mode to allow for feedback and to "gain a strong sense of the customer experience." Since then, the company claims that the service has already attracted some 60 million users.
 
“The Hotmail name won’t disappear entirely, but Outlook.com will become Microsoft’s sole free consumer e-mail offering,” a separate report on CNET said.
 
Users who do not switch over to Outlook.com will be upgraded to the new product automatically starting this week, the report added.
 
But Senior Director of Product Management Dharmesh Mehta, in a phone interview with CNET, said Hotmail users can switch over to Outlook.com anytime.
 
They can keep using their “@Hotmail” address but will also have the option to claim an “@Outlook.com” alias.
 
Outlook.com appears to be Microsoft’s response to Google’s rival Gmail service, the CNET report surmised.
 
Mehta said they expect the process ot finish by summer, but did not give an exact date. — TJD, GMA News