The Outlook Looks Good

BeckyStrause

Microsoft is obviously in competition with Google, and other free email clients, with their rebranding of Hotmail as Outlook.com. Although Google’s Gmail has 425 million users, Hotmail gets the gold medal in amount of monthly traffic. In June 2012, Hotmail had 324 million monthly visitors, compared to 290 million at Yahoo mail and 278 million at Gmail. This new site has a strong social media tie-in, and will integrate nicely with the new Windows 8. With features such as free access to Office Web apps and 7GB of space for free, this may be just what Microsoft needs to get and stay ahead of the competition.

Current Hotmail users are invited to switch to Outlook.com, and apparently 1 million users took Microsoft up on their offer in the first few hours. Current users options to create an Outlook alias (essentially having separate email addresses in one account) or to change your email address. The user can choose whether to use a Hotmail, Outlook or Live email address. However, new users will only be able to choose between Outlook.com or Live.com domains.

The new Outlook.com is bright, clean and streamline, copying the Metro design of Windows 8. The user can choose from a variety of colors to use for the accent bars, to give some personalization. The color change, and location of reading panel seem to be the only layout customizations available. Having a basic layout seems to be an advantage when it comes to navigating. A Quick View menu allows users to see documents they created, photos they’ve sent or received, messages they’ve flagged, or messages with shipment tracking numbers. The user can also add new categories to the Quick View menu.

This upgrade is impressive. Even some of the little updates, like the automatic weather forecast on my calendar, makes this die-hard Gmail user consider switching.

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Technology in Construction & Manufacturing: Why It’s More Than Just Device Management

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