MS goes cold on Hotmail

Hotmail, the first personal email service, will soon go cold. Microsoft is replacing it with Outlook.com that was launched Tuesday as a smarter, more modern alternative.

Hotmail, the first personal email service, will soon go cold. Microsoft is replacing it with Outlook.com that was launched Tuesday as a smarter, more modern alternative.

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A preview version shows the new mail is uncluttered and gives a single-window access to networking sites.

"The time is right to re-imagine personal email, from the data centre to the user experience," said Chris Jones, Microsoft vice-president, in a blog announcing the launch.

Hotmail was co-founded by Indian-American entrepreneur Sabeer Bhatia and Jack Smith in 1996 and bought by Microsoft a year later for $400 million.

Microsoft said mail on Outlook.com gets automatically sorted by contacts, newsletters and social updates. Users can go directly to their preferred categories - or even create new ones.