Microsoft will begin actively promoting Outlook.com next week

Shawn Knight

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Microsoft is planning to actively promote Outlook.com as an option for Hotmail users starting next week. The company will send out emails to current Hotmail members urging them to upgrade and use display-style ads to help lure in new users.

It may seem strange that Microsoft is just now getting around to actively promoting the new brand but according to Microsoft’s director of product management at Outlook.com David Law, that was the plan from the get-go. He told The Verge that Redmond wanted to make sure the service was working and working well at scale before heavily recruiting new users.

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It’s worth pointing out that Microsoft isn’t forcing Hotmail users to upgrade, at least not yet anyway. We do know that there will be even larger marketing campaigns and changes just over the horizon in 2013, however.

Law refused to comment on whether or not Microsoft was planning to add IMAP support in a future revision, although he did acknowledge that it’s something people have been asking for. When asked about support for the Mac, he said they have a bit of a good solution on the client side coming for that but stopped short of mentioning a date or if it would be a dedicated app.

Microsoft rebranded Hotmail to Outlook.com over the summer as part of an effort to revive the longstanding web-based email service and position it to better compete with Google’s Gmail. We got word just a couple of weeks later that the decision was a hit among users as Microsoft announced that over 10 million people had voluntarily signed up for the new service.

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They're going to need something better than a new name to draw people away from Gmail. Gmail is so much better integrated with all the other Google services everyone relies on.
 
They're going to need something better than a new name to draw people away from Gmail. Gmail is so much better integrated with all the other Google services everyone relies on.

I don't think it's meant to directly integrate with Google services. But via Google apps you can set-up non @gmail.com accounts...so in theory it should work fine.

I've been using Hotmail for 8+ years now. I loved it up until this Outlook look came out. I use Outlook (The actual program) at work...and it's fine. I use OWA from the Internet...and it's fine too. But now it seems to be extremely glitchy across multiple platforms on brand new machines. I'll opt out up until the point that they force the change.
 
They're going to need something better than a new name to draw people away from Gmail. Gmail is so much better integrated with all the other Google services everyone relies on.

I don't think it's meant to directly integrate with Google services. But via Google apps you can set-up non @gmail.com accounts...so in theory it should work fine.

I've been using Hotmail for 8+ years now. I loved it up until this Outlook look came out. I use Outlook (The actual program) at work...and it's fine. I use OWA from the Internet...and it's fine too. But now it seems to be extremely glitchy across multiple platforms on brand new machines. I'll opt out up until the point that they force the change.

On the opposite, I was never a big hotmail fan until they started with this Outlook.com change. Yes, the new UI is different, but GMail's UI is so 90s. MS really impressed me with the OutLook initiative this time.
 
I love Outlook's look. I still use Gmail due to the priority inbox feature though. Other than that, they're about the same. Both are fast, secure, etc. Outlook simply wins in the looks department.
 
Switched my hotmail account to outlook.com, and it does all what I need, with simple/elegant looks. If I wasn't forced to have an gmail account to activate S3, I wouldn't bother with it, having said that, even then I don't care for it ;)
 
Got the email this morning despite the fact that I'm already using outlook since it was launched. the UI is simply outstanding.
 
I've been using it for a while. At least the Messenger part seems to work now. I guess I'm old school, I don't like the "clean" aesthetic used everywhere lately. I prefer some lines and shading to guide my eyes and labels on buttons.

Outlook mail also runs like a dog on older hardware too. An email program.
 
I used my outlook.com email ad to request my free windows 8 media center key after purchasing windows 8 from microsoft store. luckily, I got my first key within 36 hours, the second key within minutes.

I don't know yet whether to create additional new outlook.com email ads or just upgrade/delete my 10-yr+ hotmail accounts.

lol at hotmail's then free 5gb space, then 2gb limit and back to virtually unlimited email space.
 
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