Whoopdeedoo, right? So there’s a new interface on another Web-based mail service, right? Wrong! As we launch the new Windows Live Hotmail, here’s a few things you probably didn’t know about our latest entry into the messaging marketspace:
- 36 LANGUAGES
Windows Live Hotmail supports 36 languages – because the world doesn’t revolve around just English. Like all Microsoft products, Windows Live Hotmail is a fully localized product that is available to worldwide audiences, not just America & Europe. The Microsoft Localization team is one of the foremost local translation experts in the world for software development and their presence is in full force with this launch. - 20 MILLION TESTERS
Even though it was a small subset of the overall number of users of the original Hotmail, Windows Live Hotmail had 20 million testers during the beta. To put this into perspective, the 20 million tester accounts that Windows Live Hotmail’s Beta ran with made the beta test alone larger than almost all other messaging services in the industry. - USED BY OTHER COMPANIES
Did you know Bell Canada uses Windows Live Hotmail to provide its customers with messaging services through a rebranded, specifically configured interface for their services? Did you know that University of Pennsylvania is powering "Penn Live", the schools on-campus messaging system using WindowsLive@edu, a service configuration specifically for university & alumni associations worldwide. Over 250 universities & organizations are using Windows Live Hotmail as the basis for their messaging systems.
…Windows Live Hotmail is more than just a consumer service: It’s a web-based messaging platform for other companies to leverage, reskin, and reuse as their own service while providing differentiating functionality to make it "more than just rebranded Hotmail". - MSN 9.5 COMPATIBLE
Unlike the beta, the release of Windows Live Hotmail is fully compatible with MSN’s client side software for messaging. I’m especially pleased by this because MSN’s Premium client-side software filter absolutely rules when it comes to filtering out SPAM. - MICROSOFT OUTLOOK CONNECTIVITY… 100% FREE!
Anyone with Outlook 2007/2003 can now, for the first time, connect to their Windows Live Hotmail accounts for no charge. Formerly a subscription feature, anyone using Outlook, the world’s most popular messaging client, can access both their work email as well as their Windows Lilve Hotmail-based email in the same client. A beta of the connector will be available in 11 languages in the coming weeks from http://get.live.com/betas. (This should not be confused with the existing Outlook Connector plug in for Hotmail which is for the Premium service we used to have available.) - PC MAGAZINE’S EDITOR’S CHOICE
Windows Live Hotmail received PC Magazine’s Editor’s Choice award for best web-based mail service trumping most every other service available, in just it’s beta state. And many of the comments that were made were with regard to the service’s stability – issues that have long since been resolved prior to Windows Live Hotmail’s launch! - LARGEST AJAX-BASED WEBMAIL SERVICE
With over 280 Million users worldwide, Windows Live Hotmail will be the best and largest AJAX-based webmail service in the world. AJAX-technology enables end users with a much more interactive "drag & drop experience" when working with web-based messaging while. most importantly, enabling the service to download specific bits of data in the background of the browser session for specifically selected mail items without refreshing the entire web page. The resulting experience is that everything runs snappier, quicker, and is more responsive. - WINDOWS LIVE HOTMAIL "CLIENT"
Windows Live Hotmail will have an installable client for your laptop called, very simply, "Windows Live Mail". Apparently slated for availability in it’s beta state in a few weeks, the Windows Live Mail client should be posted on http://get.live.com/betas according to the product group folks that blog at http://morethanmail.spaces.live.com. This is NOT to be confused with the Windows Live Mail Desktop product, which was it’s predecessor.Windows Live Mail will include all the great features that were available to you in WLMd, plus: (taken from the WLM blog)
-
New and improved UI: Cleaner design, and now with Aero support!
-
Setup and account migration improvements: Smoother experience overall – you will now have fewer steps in order to get started with the client.
-
More parity with OE and Windows Mail: S/MIME and LDAP support are just two of the features that we’ve been working on for WLM which will bring us more parity with our other free Mail clients.
-
Performance and stability: The new product will be faster and more robust than WLMd.
-
No Ads: Yes, it’s true – there will be no graphical ads in the WLM beta build.
My own personal impressions of Windows Live Hotmail?
I can sum it up in one word: FAST. This sucker’s FAST. I mean, it’s "faster than Outlook 2007" fast. And while it’s not even 5% of the functionality as Outlook, it’s so snappy and responsive that I don’t really mind using it just for one or two adhoc sort of emails. I normally hate web-based mail (thus the heavy usage of my Pocket PC Phone) and this hatred extends to our own service as well historically as well as our two primary competitors… but this isn’t bad at all and a huge improvement over the current state of the art! Good work Windows Live Hotmail team! You should be proud!
Check it out here:
http://www.discoverhotmail.com/
kurtsh
Kurt Shintaku's Blog 