Microsoft’s latest revamp of its webmail service is now finally live and out of beta mode. The company launched Outlook.com as an upgrade from Live.com last year, offering users the chance to stick with their current email system or upgrade and try out the new site.
At precisely 12:01am today the company announced that Outlook.com was out of beta mode, with over 60 million people signing up to use the service or making the switch from Live or Hotmail during that time.
Impressively, a third of those signups are Gmail users defecting to Microsoft’s revamped webmail service. Why would they switch? The Outlook account integrates Microsoft’s SkyDrive cloud storage system, for one, as well as easy use of Office files and sharing.
Hotmail and Live users will be switched to Outlook.com by the summer, says Microsoft. Users won’t have to change their email address – although they can change to a ‘@outlook.com’ account, if they want to – and they can simply continue accessing email the same way as they did before, just the site will look different.
We’ve been using Outlook.com since the first launch of beta last year, and we got used to it pretty quick. It helps if you’re familiar with Windows 8, as it’s been designed to look and work in much the same way, but its simple layout and design are easy to get used to quickly enough.
If you fancy making the jump now then head to Outlook.com and either sign up to a new account or switch your current Hotmail or Live address to Outlook.