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Users Being Migrated To New Version of Hotmail
An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft has started work on migrating Hotmail users to a new version after testing the new system on select customers for almost two years. Microsoft stated in the article that more than 20 million users provided feedback to the new-look Hotmail. 'For now, Microsoft will give Hotmail users the option to continue using the old version if they don't want to switch to the upgraded version. However, at some point, everyone will be unilaterally migrated over to Windows Live Hotmail ... New users will be automatically signed up for Windows Live Hotmail but, like any user of the new service, they will get to choose from two user interfaces: a "classic" layout that closely resembles the old Hotmail; or the new interface, which was designed to look like Microsoft's Outlook e-mail and calendaring desktop application.'"
...and none of them asked for a "Mark as read" button?
Two years ago, the company I work for began offering MS Outlook through the web to employees. At first I was skeptical, I didn't think it would be that useful. But, a year after that, it was seriously fully functional Outlook over a website. I also use Hotmail for my personal life and had wondered why in the hell Microsoft didn't apply the same great ideas from the web-based Outlook client to their Hotmail site. I don't think my company would drop its control of its Exchange Servers if Hotmail offered the same look and feel. I didn't think Microsoft would lose any business at all but they would have cornered the market in e-mail.
Sometime between a year ago and today, it's become fully compliant with Firefox 2.0--I'm pretty impressed and actually don't mind using web-based Outlook when I'm out of the office.
Why did Microsoft sit on their hands as Google slowly built up their capabilities to match those of Outlook? Why didn't Microsoft work on porting what they had done for Outlook to their Hotmail servers? I guess server load could always be the answer to those questions but I'm starting to think that Microsoft thought Hotmail would always be number one in personal e-mail. Thankfully, it looks like the competition is putting the pressure on them to improve their service.
I used this tool two years ago, way to drop the ball, Microsoft. You could have beat Google to a calendar application and solidified Hotmail.
My work here is dung.
As long as they keep the 'deliver all mail to the trash' feature they can style it however they like.
Steve: Hey, PR flack, the Hotmail group has been hemorrhaging users ever since I sugges... er, those idiots decided to "update" that user interface. How can we make that sound like a good thing?
PR Flack: Easy, Mr. Ballmer. Voi la
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Despite the long development time (and I've been using the new Hotmail for as long as it's been tested), it definitely is an improvement. Outlook itself is a fantastic e-mail client, and moving Hotmail to that kind of look and feel is definitely a bonus. I wouldn't mind being able to customize it a bit more but in terms of just being able to access my email in a quick and easy fashion, it's definitely ranking quite high in my books.
Dragging and dropping emails
Quick Preview of Emails
Equaling Google's mail storage
It's like there's a party in my mailbox and everyone's invited!
"Anybody who tells me I can't use a program because it's not open source, go suck on rms. I'm not interested." (LT 2004)
I havent seen a hotmail account in ages. They seem more rare then aol.com emails. The bulk of emails I have seen are either yahoo.com or gmail.com.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
i was part of the beta. seamless integration with windows mobile is the killer feature for me. i've had my motorola Q for about 8 months and i've needed to log into pocket msn twice (because I switched from original battery to extended life). mail is pushed to my phone and I get IMs etc. - as well as Live Search/Maps etc out of the box. I can honestly say that - having both a gmail account and live hotmail account - that gmail is down way more - which - coupled with the fact that I do most of my emailing and IMing from my mobile unit - have caused me to migrate back to being a dual user from being a gmail user exclusively for a while. i can imagine some of gmails problems are because of scale - so it'll be interesting to see how hotmail reacts when the service is sufficiently wide to test infrastructure.
un burrito me trampeó.
This is just more Hotmail Awesomeness IMO, I remember a few weeks ago the account I use for important communications was brought done due to inactivity, they somehow didn't notice I log into Windows Messenger every day... But the icing on the cake was when I logged into an account I rarely if ever use (it's primarily for junk mail, web registrations, etc) was working fine. Hadn't logged into that account in months and it was all there. My main account however lost all archived e-mails and contacts. Awesome. I use gmail now. Don't much care for it's interface, but it's by far more responsive then the new hotmail.
I'm sick of following my dreams. I'm just going to ask where they're goin' and hook up with 'em later.
I'd LOVE it if I could be taken to my gorram emails when I log in, rather than to their fluff pseudo journalism hackfest until I find and click the 'inbox' button.
Gawds, it's annoying enough to be taken there when you log out, but when you log in? Urge to kill... rising.
You can't take the sky from me...
I read the article (really) and it never says what servers are being used behind the curtain. They were embarrassed when they could not put Hotmail on Exchange when it was originally acquired. This would be a grand showcase for the scalability of Exchange. Why isn't it being shouted from the rooftops? Are they waiting to see if it _does_ scale?
Bah!
Now, I've been a hotmail user since early 1997. I switched to Gmail when it came out, but kept my Hotmail account for sentimental purposes. A few months back though, I finally completely gave up on it.
20 million feedbacks? Ha! Most likely, they haven't read any of it - and certainly haven't read mine. I wrote them about the maddening lack of 'Check all' function, and the fact that when you start checking emails one by one, if you miss by a few pixels - it will select that one email, and lose all your other selections.
This pretty much makes Live Hotmail completely unusable to anyone who needs to delete a bunch of spam emails (and with Hotmail, you get a LOT of spam.)
At least it sounded good in theory - Gmail is still far behind Outlook, imho. And when somebody makes GOOD web-based Outlook, I'll be sold.
And you know what Billg said about each user feedback? "That's the dumbest fucking idea I've heard since I've been at Microsoft."
I currently have some 8 or so email addresses. One of these is Hotmail. One is Yahoo, I also use Eudora, Outlook, and Macintosh Mail. Oh, and Pine and elm on two systems. To me interface is just eye candy. I DON'T CARE what Hollyweird scandal, or flashing ad for a airline ticket/ car/ toothpaste/, is displayed next to some email that is an advert for Nigerian investments (that is as valid as the ads/articles) -which is what 90% of my Hotmail contains..
I also do not try to juggle my life via some online calendar that can crash/die and leave me all a twitter where I am suposed to be at 10:00.
Mail is mail. you toss the junk mail, you read the interesting stuff, grimace at the bills, and rememeber you need to send that birthday card to Mom.
Online is no different then the paper kind. Hotmail's change of interface is like when the Electric company changed to smaller envelopes (and didn't bother to adjust their sorting machines). Better eye candy means more annoyance, Big Deal, Somehow, in spite of it, I supose I can still delete the spam. Thanks Microsoft for all the improvements.
- Minutus cantorum, minutus balorum, minutus carborata descendum pantorum.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Looks slick and professional on first glance. No ads. Nice color scheme. Mail isn't automatically saved to the sent mail folder. Attaching a file to an email requires two clicks, one to browse for the attachment, and one to upload it. The interface seems fast. I tried using the gmail hotkeys, like f, c, and it didn't work. bummer. Only 2 gigs of storage space. Overall rating: 78/100
A house divided against itself cannot stand.
Okay, I don't have a hotmail account, although I do have a Gmail one. So how do the two stack up? From reading comments here and looking at public sources I see:
Does anyone have any other comparative features or info or corrections for the above list?
"...at some point, everyone will be unilaterally migrated over to Windows Live Hotmail"
What? How dare they! When did Google and Yahoo give 'em permission to do that?
From when did hot possible naked dudes become porn?
Thank you for realizing this. Gmail's numbers are at least actual people. My e-mail addresses have NEVER seen spam from a Gmail address, but I've seen hoards from Yahoo alone. Please don't swallow those inflated statistics without choking.
I'm just baffled at how bad the design of the new Hotmail was done. For example, say I want to read a message in my junk folder. To do so, I click on the junk folder and select the message. This brings the header information onto the screen. A yellow bar at the top of the e-mail informs me:
Messages in the Junk folder never get opened automatically.
and invites me to click an "Open message" link to have the message load in full. I do so. This presents the message, but any links contained therein are disabled. This is indicated by another yellow bar at the top of the e-mail saying:
Attachments, pictures, and links in this message have been blocked for your safety.
with a link saying "Show content", which finally brings about the message how I desired it, which should have happened in the first place when I clicked on it.
I don't like being treated like I'm a severely brain damaged five year old.
Oh and BTW I don't see any ads at all in my GMail.
I'm looking over the wall, and they're looking at me!
How about they fix their Spam filter or at least allow me to block a lot more domains? A mail provider with approved spam just isn't the way to do things.
Did you ever notice that *nix doesn't even cover Linux?