Microsoft has already done some of its hardest work. The Redmond factory has just completed the migration of the free Hotmail email accounts to Outlook.com , the new service that from now on users who want to check and send email will have to go. The result? A transition made with quite remarkable success and more than 400 million active accounts . A more than positive balance if we consider that to date, Outlook.com had 60 million users. From now on, all of them will be able to enjoy access to services that have been modernized in recent times. We refer to the calendar, the application that updates all the information for Android devices , the two-step authentication for the account, the new international domains for people around the world and the launch of a preview of Skype , the popular Internet video calling service.
But this is not all. Outlook.com already has more than 125 million users accessing their email, calendar and contacts through a phone or mobile device with the Exchange ActiveSync synchronization service . To all this, Microsoft wants to announce a couple of interesting news for this great mass of users. From now on, Outlook.com will also allow us to send messages through the SMTP protocol from different email addresses and a much more solid and efficient integration with SkyDrive , the cloud storage service that for some time now. part promotesMicrosoft .
A very important update
Aside from migrating all Hotmail users to Outlook.com , the company has also worked on moving 150 petabytes of email in just six weeks. It was, in effect, a rather expensive and practically unprecedented process, through which they have ensured that the email, calendar appointments, contacts, folders and personal preferences of each user were correctly stored. At this time, we can say that the update is completely complete.
Changes and improvements
After having tested the new system and interface, users are showing quite satisfied. Almost all opinions agree that the new Outlook.com (which has also received some improvements) runs smoother and that SkyDrive works excellent. In fact, the overall appearance of the system is very similar to Windows 8 , the company's most advanced operating system. The contents have been focused and the information is displayed in a much more organized way, so that it is now easy to see where each content is. Display ads have disappeared and it has become a well- designed, fast and intuitive service.
One of the most important changes is the function that will allow us to send messages from other addresses, but through the Outlook.com account . With the changes, mail sent from a different account will be transferred through the account's SMTP server , regardless of the email provider that provides POP or IMAP access . To take advantage of this function, of course, the user will have to configure it through the Options> More mail options menu , adjusting the SMTP server settings . This tool will be available globally in the coming weeks.
The next change we will see in SkyDrive . From now on, a single Outlook.com account will be enough to log into the cloud storage service, being able to share contacts and send attachments. In this way, SkyDrive will be integrated directly into Outlook.com and it will be much easier to insert images from SkyDrive , add, edit or delete files and images directly. The integration of this service will take place from today and will be available worldwide in a few weeks.
Frequent questions
In its latest statement, the company wanted to answer some of the most frequently asked questions. If you are one of the users who has undergone the migration process, we will tell you here that to continue using the service you will NOT have to change your Hotmail email address . You also won't have to update the phone settings because the address is kept. Finally, if you have a Hotmail Plus account, you will continue working through Outlook.com , since there will be no changes either.