Hotmail Officially Dead: Microsoft Introduces New Outlook.com

It's official: Hotmail, the 90's pioneer of e-mail, is dead. In it's place, Microsoft introduces a new and improved Outlook.com.

Even when Yahoo and Gmail came into the picture and took most of its business, Hotmail continued to keep the service alive to its users for 16 years.

"As of today, every single Hotmail account has been migrated to Outlook.com, Microsoft's newer and redesigned email experience," reported Yahoo! Finance.

Users who type "Hotmail.com" into their address bar will find that they need a Microsoft account name and password to sign in.

The company announced the transition from email services to the new Outlook.com. It took six weeks for Microsoft to migrate 150 petabytes of email. Outlook.com claims to have over 400 million active accounts, 125 million of which are accessed from mobile devices. The Outlook email client has a modern interface and new features, such as two-step authentication, an updated app, and integration with cloud service Skydrive and Skype.

Hotmail users can still use their old accounts for as long as they wish. They can also choose to claim an Outlook email address.

"Our belief is that as people start using the new experience, they will come to love it even more than they loved Hotmail," said Dick Craddock, Outlook.com's group program mananger. "We are keenly listening to what our customers have to say, and we'll make the right set of adjustments to ensure that we make the experience as great as it can be."

Craddock thanked faithful Hotmail users on his blog: "We want to give a huge "Thank you" to all of you who have supported Hotmail over the years, for some of you, that's going back as far as 1996... We're excited to have you join Outlook.com as we write the next chapter in modern email from Microsoft."

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