Outlook.com completes Hotmail migration

Outlook.com, Microsoft's overhauled email service, completed last week the "upgrading" of some 300 million accounts of its Hotmail email service to the new product.

 

Program manager Dick Craddock said the task involved migrating some 150 petabytes —one petabyte is one million gigabytes— of Hotmail user data in just six weeks.

 

"When Outlook.com came out of preview in February, it already had more than 60 million active accounts. However, Hotmail was still one of the most widely used services, with over 300 million active accounts. This made the magnitude of the process incredible, maybe even unprecedented. This meant communicating with hundreds of millions of people, upgrading all their mailboxes--equaling more than 150 million gigabytes of data--and making sure that every person's mail, calendar, contacts, folders, and personal preferences were preserved in the upgrade," Craddock said in a blog post.

 

He said Microsoft spent the last few weeks ensuring that everything was completed "in line with our high quality expectations."

 

Craddock reassured Hotmail customers they need not change their email addresses, or change any settings on their devices.

 

"Your Hotmail Plus account will continue to work with Outlook.com, no need to make any changes. As before, your account never expires and you don't see any ads," he added.

 

Craddock also said that with the upgrade completed, Microsoft is turning its energy and attention to future innovation and improvements to Outlook.com.

 

Meanwhile, Craddock said Outlook.com now features deeper integration with SkyDrive, Microsoft's cloud-based storage service.

 

These include a single Microsoft account for signing in, a shared contact list and set of connected networks, the ability to send large attachments, and a shared header.

 

"When you're sending an email message, you can select files from your SkyDrive and we'll automatically turn those into the right thumbnails with links that have the right permissions tied to people that receive the email. When you insert pictures from SkyDrive, you automatically get a beautiful photo mail. And it's easy to edit the message, and add or remove files and pictures right from the new message compose experience," he said.

 

He added the new integration is starting to roll out and "will be available worldwide in the coming weeks." — TJD, GMA News