When it comes to web based mail, Yahoo and Gmail tend to be the key providers. Most people tend to have one or even both. But then you had other providers like Microsoft with their Hotmail service, which became the laughing stock of the Internet despite how many people actually signed up for it. Having a Hotmail account was the equivalent of having a Friendster account to the Internet community in today’s age of Facebook and Twitter. You’d think that with a reputation that tarnished, Microsoft would just give up on the whole thing. Instead, they launched the Microsoft Outlook email service and are in swing for one of the best service rebrandings.
By definition, the new Microsoft Outlook email is like Hotmail; it’s a web-based mail service from Microsoft. And you can tell that just as easily from the way it looks. In the wake of Microsoft’s revamping with Windows 8, the Microsoft Outlook email service will also sport the Metro theme. The theme has both its fans and its critics, but its minimalist look fits well for an email service.
The inbox is actually very simple looking, but it does provide some great features. Like other email services you can categorize your emails into groups like Work or Friends. What Outlook also lets you do though is filter your inbox so you can only see your newsletters or even social media updates.
The email service even has some other Microsoft features thrown into it. For example, Microsoft Office web apps are built into the service. You can even use Skype from within the service and every Outlook account will come with 7GB of storage on Skydrive. And to top it all off more than a million people have already signed up for an account.
It just goes to show that with a little streamlining, some integrated web apps, and a name of a slightly more successful Microsoft product, you can rebrand something and be on the verge of taking the web by storm.