
Introducing Outlook.com - Modern Email for the Next Billion Mailboxes - kaelspencer
http://blogs.office.com/b/microsoft-outlook/archive/2012/07/31/introducing-outlook-com-modern-email-for-the-next-billion-mailboxes.aspx
======
rickmb
We haven't instantly forgotten how Microsoft handles Skydrive, have we?:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4265086>

I think I'll pass on putting my email through their systems. Although I have
to admit this looks way better than GMail. I hope this inspires Google to do
something about their interface design.

~~~
kmfrk
You needn't look any farther than Hotmail to grow wary of the merits of their
new service.

And there's the whole Skype brouhaha.

Microsoft have an edge over Google in that they aren't perceived to be as
morally bankrupt, when it comes to privacy and protecting their users (because
they earn their money elsewhere), but with the Skype criticism, that may be
subject to change. It's a nice flank of attack to use against Google, though,
and the video ad in the submission hits all the right notes.

~~~
troels
Not trying to be smug, but I bet you're younger than 30, if you can say that
with a straight face.

~~~
vitalique
Suppose we move 20 years forward. Are we going to see this type of comment
regardless of what the company would be at that time? "No way, man! I bet
you're younger than 50, if you... " Do you really think that ghosts from the
past need to haunt people's minds for that long regardless of how the state of
the world has changed? I perceive none of MS and Google as being protective of
their users or respectful of said users privacy. Nonetheless, when we speak of
events that have anything to do with morals, I guess we have to take into
consideration the time that has passed since those events have happened, since
both the morals and the scene could have changed dramatically.

~~~
rbanffy
The UEFI "secure boot" thing tells me they haven't changed one bit. They are
still the same company. Trust them at your own risk. You have been warned.

------
saurik
Microsoft really doesn't care about branding: once I logged in to my new
@outlook.com Inbox using Outlook.com, I was redirected to live.com where I had
a single message pre-sent to me from the "Hotmail Team" welcoming me to
Microsoft Live Hotmail.

~~~
masonhensley
Outlook's url seems to be on the live.com domain... confusing at best. Let's
make a comparison of url's from the "home" view:

New Outlook (wtf): <https://bay002.mail.live.com/default.aspx>

Gmail (better, could be cleaner): <https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox>

~~~
Metrop0218
Does the URL really matter that much? I agree it's not unimportant, but I
don't think it's a big deal. The program itself is much more important

~~~
grampajoe
It matters from a security perspective. A bad or inconsistent URL, especially
a hostname that isn't instantly recognizable, makes phishing easier.

------
robomartin
I've been using Outlook by choice, well, forever. I won't bother listing all
the reasons for this. It's powerful and it works well. And, if you are a
programmer, you can go to town writing your own customizations with VBA.

I use Yahoo Mail online for most of my personal stuff. Out of all the online
email offerings out there I have found it to be the most "polished" (if I can
use that term) and outlook-like. I tried Gmail a couple of years back and just
didn't do it for me. As an example, the lack of a real time preview pane was a
huge deal breaker for me. Both Outlook and Yahoo Mail have this. Maybe Gmail
has this now, I don't know.

The other thing about Gmail that scared the crap out of me was to watch as one
of our clients had their Gmail account evaporate because their AdSense account
got shut down. They were new to the platform and made a couple of dumb and
innocent mistakes off the line. Google bots summarily shut-down the account
with no recourse or anyone to contact. As their account got suspended so went
Gmail. I'll let you venture a guess as to whether or not these people are
using any Google products now.

Here's a feature I wish email clients would implement: Tabbed accounts.

I run more than one company and regularly monitor a dozen email accounts.
Outlook and Yahoo Mail allow you to setup rules to deliver email from specific
accounts into designated folders. With Outlook you can also choose to store
the email in separate files. That's all well and fine, but the whole thing has
the risk of becoming cluttered and difficult to use after a while.

There's an Outlook hack that allows you to launch multiple Outlook instances.
This works very well as I can launch one instance that opens the email
addresses corresponding to one business and another instance with a separate
business. Having multiple monitors makes this even handier.

What would be even better is if I could do the same thing with tabs. I want
one tab per business --or a user-designated category. Each tab would receive
and send email from one or many email addresses. They would all be independent
while having relevant sharing capabilities (copy and past, drag and drop,
etc.).

It's about context switching.

With something like that I could have a single email client handle all of my
business email as well as personal within one application window. That would
be slick.

~~~
2arrs2ells
Gmail allows you to sign in to multiple accounts at the same time (in
different tabs).

I have two pinned tabs always open in Chrome - one for personal, one for
business emails. Works incredibly well for me.

~~~
danielweber
How does this work? If I sign out in one tab, it signs me out in another tab,
on Google Chrome. Just tested it.

~~~
archangel_one
I click on my account picture in the top right, then click on "Add account"
and log into the other one. Presto, two accounts.

Disclaimer: I am about 99% certain this is not some weird internal Google
feature (not on the gmail team, don't worry), but it's also been > 1 week
since I had to go through this performance so I may have forgotten some
detail.

~~~
tlogan
And then when you click on some Google service it always logs you in with a
wrong account. Good luck trying to add something to calendar by clicking to a
link.

~~~
magicalist
I assume this is hyperbole (I'm not sure what magic you're expecting...maybe
something like intents where it asks you every time which account to use?),
but the logic isn't complicated. It just uses the first account you logged in
with. I'm usually signed in to two accounts (and have a gmail tab for each
open right now), so I just sign in to the one I do my primary calendaring, etc
in first.

If you really want to keep them separated, you should just use Chrome's multi
user accounts or their equivalent in other browsers.

------
dlikhten
"Your password can't be longer than 16 characters."

Well, it failed my test. Sorry. I never trust my emails to small hard to
remember passwords. I rather trust them to very large easy to remember/type
passwords. Like horses-functional-pickles

Also their capcha, I cannot figure out it, i won't spend more than 2 minutes
on capcha

~~~
epistasis
This threw me off as well. I thought Microsoft was supposed to be security
conscious, but putting in small, arbitrary limits in places where they don't
belong is not reassuring in the least.

They also make it insanely difficult to use a password manager, as the login
page URL redirects from outlook.com to some randomness that's 205 characters
long.

~~~
kmfrk
I can sympathize with it being a preview and all, but the consequence will
nevertheless be that there will be a bunch of people out the who will enter <=
16-character-length passwords and forget all about them.

I mean, unless Microsoft explicitly prompt them with a reminder of sorts, when
they flip the switch on a sane password length, but what are the odds of that
happening?

------
yaix
Nice UI, very light and simple, seems to be running fast even on my netbook. I
guess I will start to use my 15 year old hotmail account again, good to
finally have an alternative to Gmail.

Only one thing: Microsoft, I know its really chiq and en-vogue nowadays to
have some element with position:fixed; on every page, but please: don't!

There is no reason whatsoever why I would want to see all the time the
titlebar. I mean, why would I want to see it? I know I am using Outlook! I
know who I am! And it's not very often that I want to access the settings!

But, I guess, there is no way around it, position:fixed; is just soooo
"modern".

~~~
btilly
I hate position fixed stuff. I scroll a page, then have to scroll back a few
lines because what I want to read next, instead of appearing next, is hidden
under a titlebar that I really don't care about.

~~~
dredmorbius
Stylish FTFW.

It's a pain maintaining override scripts for multiple sites, but pick your
battles and you can make some positive improvements.

------
jimmyjazz14
Just tried it out and from my initial experience gotta say this isn't bad. The
UI feels pretty clean and easy to read (which I always found to be an issue
with gmails web interface). Doesn't look like you can use IMAP with it though
so I doubt I will use it for my main email address anytime soon.

~~~
esharef
I sort of disagree. The UI is clean but things aren't where you expect them to
be and it makes it confusing. For instance, I didn't know where to put the
subject when I was sending my first email -- it's huge but it's weirdly placed
and unintuitive. I also couldn't find the Send button at first because it's on
the Nav bar -- not where I expected.

I also agree with the post below re: branding. I went to "Help" to see what
they had and it took me to a windows.com page saying "This page doesn't exist"
followed by "Hotmail Help". Nice.

~~~
sebtoast
Just wanted to say that you can use the ctrl+enter shortcut instead of
pressing send, like in Outlook.

You can also tab between "to:", "subject" and "body" parts of the email by
just using tab (tab twice when finished entering email addresses).

I much prefer using a keyboard than a mouse.

~~~
MartinCron
I switch between Outlook and Gmail and frequently find myself wondering why
ctrl + enter doesn't work in Gmail.

------
Afton
[http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/xgjrw/we_are_the_team_...](http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/xgjrw/we_are_the_team_behind_the_new_outlookcom_service/)

Disclosure: I work at MS, but not on this product and have no special insight
into their workings.

------
briandear
The reason Outlook is the world's most used mail client is because people are
often forced to use it to access their company email. While anecdotal, I don't
know a single person that uses outlook because they choose to. However,
hopefully, outlook.com can introduce some innovation in the space, although,
I'm skeptical as I am with most Microsoft 'innovation.'

~~~
gecko
To give a counterpoint, I not only know maybe a half dozen people who
voluntarily use Outlook; I know at least two who voluntarily use Outlook _on a
Mac_.

I think the fact that few _developers_ enjoy using Outlook is causing you to
overgeneralize. Most people who don't care about things like whether their
email is in mbox format, or who don't want to learn how to use Mutt or
notmuch, find Outlook surprisingly easy to use and powerful.

I poked around on outlook.com, and I don't see anything particularly
innovative, other than it looks and works nearly exactly like Outlook 2013.
But I wouldn't assume its lack of anything novel dooms it to obscurity,
either. Outlook, unlike Notes, is a positive brand-name in some circles. I
wouldn't be surprised to see this get a relatively large amount of traction
right off the bat.

~~~
beagledude
Outlook on the Mac is actually a very decent client, and I prefer it over the
other options.

~~~
StacyC
I use Outlook 2011 on my Mac for the company Exchange email, contacts +
calendaring. It's not bad at all, and Spotlight searching is very fast.

------
mladenkovacevic
Sounds like a lot of interesting innovative features that a lot of people
might use: social, quick-views, select-all-messages-from-sender..etc

I kind of have a problem with their design though. I guess it is all part of
the Metro initiative which can look nice in some of their efforts (mobile) ..
but here it just shouts at me something to the effect of: "I'm so new and cool
and fresh that I don't need subtlety or pleasant earthy colors. Mail, People,
Calendar, SKYDRIVE.. I dare you to click EVERYTHING!" Maybe I'm getting too
old in my 30th year of life but that intimidates me more than it excites me.

------
MatthewPhillips
Google is asleep at the wheel. This makes them look bad. Gmail blew the doors
off every other webmail client when it launched 5 years ago but it's time for
a rewrite. The fact that they used Gmail mobile as their "Gmail Offline"
product in Chrome tells me that the current client can't be modernized. I only
hope that is what the Sparrow guys are going to be working on, because
Microsoft isn't the company you would expect to be leading in HTML5
innovation.

~~~
crescentfresh
outlook.com's DOCTYPE:

    
    
        <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" 
          "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">

~~~
MatthewPhillips
What is wrong with using xhtml?

~~~
Bootvis
That isn't "leading HTML5 innovation" but I got your point ;)

~~~
MatthewPhillips
Ah, ok, I was talking about their use of CSS3 transitions primarily.

~~~
crescentfresh
CSS3 is not [part of] HTML5. CSS3 is just what came after CSS2.

------
debacle
cross-post from another thread because HN tends to bury things:

Wow. Very interesting. At first glance, the interface looks very mobile
friendly and also very simple.

I'm incredibly impressed. The only feedback I would give is that the buttons
in the top bar could stand out a bit - maybe a different shade of blue or a
slight border. It wasn't immediately clear to me where 'send' was.

The ads are a bit more obtrusive than Google Mail ads, though I think that
would just take a bit of getting used to.

I'm impressed as fuck, though. I can't explain how impressed I am.

------
jaybill
Precious $DIETY, take my $APPENDAGE. Please let the next version of OWA look
like this.

------
yoblin
Signup captcha appears to be case sensitive (or something??). After try number
6 I give up. Nice work, Microsoft.

~~~
aes256
So I go to register at Outlook.com...

1\. Enter details with a short, simple email address. Submit the form;

2\. Sign up fails. I provided an alternative email address but not a phone
number; apparently both are required for password recovery (why?), despite
there being no indication both fields are required. Grudgingly give up phone
number and try again;

3\. Sign up fails. Apparently my phone number isn't valid, and I have to
delete the first digit (0 in the UK, to be replaced by +44) for the form to
accept it. Try again;

4\. Sign up fails. For some reason the form has kept all my other details but
has decided to lose the month and year of my DOB. Re-enter those details and
try again;

5\. Sign up fails. I was presented with the same CAPTCHA for the first three
attempts but apparently it's now changed; Enter new CAPTCHA and try again;

5\. Sign up fails. Finally, the form tells me the short, simple email address
I chose is taken. There was no indication when I entered the address;

6\. Give up and forget about it.

~~~
tobias3
They don't allow the password to have more than 16 characters as well.

------
jsz0
I've never been a fan of the GMail web UI so this is a very refreshing change.
I've been ready to make the switch away from GMail for a while so it's nice to
have another option. I was seriously considering iCloud mail but I have some
reservations about how committed Apple is to iCloud.com -- the Mail UI isn't
terrible but it lacks features. I really need server side mail rules for
example. My only reservation about OutLook is that Microsoft has so much
Google envy they might do all the same things that are driving me away from
GMail. At least with Apple I know how the game works. I give them money and
they give me a product/service. I'm good with that arrangement.

------
idm
I think it will be a hard fight for mindshare, but Microsoft brings a ton to
the plate. The Skype play could really gain them some ground.

As I think about it, Office was sortof like the original mashup (but applied
to the desktop space). When they started integrating everything into Office
(including the OS and the web browser) it started falling apart.

What I see with outlook.com is another mashup concept, but this time it is a
very natural fit: the web is basically meant for this sort of thing.

And another thing: I use Skype. I am typing this on a mac, but I do have that
one MS-owned property installed (Skype). This could be a vector that MS uses
towards greater mindshare.

~~~
rhplus
The comments on their Facebook announcement page[1] are surprisingly positive.
I think it's worth remembering that while Hotmail and SkyDrive might not have
'mindshare' in Silicon Valley or even across the US, there's a large
population of new and global users who have not yet formed opinions on the
matter and, more importantly, are willing to try Hotmail out, especially when
it's presented in a fresh and modern way like this.

[1]
[https://www.facebook.com/#!/media/set/?set=a.101510045341137...](https://www.facebook.com/#!/media/set/?set=a.10151004534113721.424349.20528438720&type=1)

------
option_greek
Damn... it directly displays in Hindi language for me. I suppose their thought
process is that if you have an indian IP, you must know hindi. What's more,
even after I changed the language, some of the labels are still in hindi.

------
codegeek
Few posts are bashing Outlook in general but I will take it anyday over the
biggest piece of shit we have at work: Lotus Notes. It is one of my biggest
pain points at work.

------
etruong42
There's a blogpost on HackerNews' "best" links right now that complains that
"Apple's new ads look like Microsoft made them"
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4313614>

Interestingly enough, the ads created by Microsoft touting Outlook.com don't
have any of these problems the blogpost associates with Microsoft ads. In
fact, the ads excites me and compels me to at least try the product.

------
ceejayoz
I logged in with my Microsoft account, which uses my work e-mail as the e-mail
address. It happily presented me webmail for it.

That's going to confuse non-technical users. There's no indication that any
replies are going to go right where it's supposed to, Google Apps...

Plus, when attempting to send, I get a captcha. Filling it out (correctly)
gives me a "too many attempts" warning.

------
jaspero
Suddenly my Gmail looks cluttered and old. Bonus, I got my name@outlook.com.
That's a big win. Hope they make good stuff.

------
poweratom
TL;DL: Thumbs down.

"Unsatisfactory" would be the word I'd use for the new outlook.com. Slow,
terrible UI and UX, and I see no improvements on the junkmail filter at all.

I really would like to see MSFT getting better at this (or at anything,
really; they are the underdog in so many categories of tech now). But they are
not. I'm a Mac/Apple fan by choice. But I like competition in the market. And
I do wish MSFT the best in getting it right (or somewhat right). But this is
so far out there that I just don't know what they are thinking. To use the
words "We think the time is right to reimagine email" is simply disingenuous
-- the site didn't reimagine anything -- it looked like a re-skinned old
hotmail to me in every aspect.

I will check it out again in a couple of months. Maybe they'll have time to
fix enough problems that I'll change my mind then. But until that point,
thumbs down.

------
ndcrandall
This actually makes we want to use my hotmail account a lot more. For the
longest time I used hotmail for junk emails and random signups to shield my
true email address. Interesting how UI/UX can completely change your attitude
toward a service (I never expected to change from Gmail until right now).

------
sbucher
In terms of UI, the differences vs gmail seem trivial and possibly in the
wrong direction. The three column format is identical; it is mainly cleaner
because it removes useful features: inline email text preview, a prominent
search box, navigation to other frequently used services, e.g. drive. On first
glance sparse designs look better, but for frequently used software people
tend to like the greater data density in practice. I also image that they will
introduce l their own navigation bar to other services at some point, so that
minor distinction would be temporary. On the hand it is far better than
Microsoft's existing offering, and being able to integrate with third party
social services rather than g+ is a substantial difference they should
continue to run with.

~~~
contextfree
There's a navigation bar to other services (click on the chevron next to the
"Outlook" title). It's just less prominent and 2 clicks instead of one. Which
I think is the right tradeoff, as wanting to navigate to another service isn't
as common as Google would like it to be.

------
darklajid
HN: Is this a feature or a bug?

My live id is a Gmail address. Went to Outlook.com, wanted to register but the
form said 'login if you have a live id'. Did that, ended up on a very ugly
hotmail-kind-of site.

Hrmpf. Went back to Outlook.com, but logged in now: The web interface lets me
compose and send mails as me@gmail?

~~~
geuis
Confirmed. My Live account that I use for xbox live is my gmail account. I was
pleasantly surprised that I was able to login to outlook.com with my gmail
address. However I am concerned about the ability to send email from
outlook.com that is sent as the name of another provider.

~~~
darklajid
In general that'd be fine. The sender address can be easily spoofed anyway -
smtp works that way.

The thing is, this seems to be broken by design in my world. Google should
(have to check that again) publish a record that lists 'official' mail servers
for GMail.

This whole setup could work just fine, even if it's a bit weird. But right now
I suppose you look like a crappy imposter to any receiver AND you can never
receive emails (they .. would end up in your GMail inbox of course).

------
jpalomaki
I really like the way they use text in the user interface instead of graphical
symbols. When Google introduced their new buttons it took some time to get
used to remember which one did what.

Google has been probably quite successful in monetizing their web mail. It can
be sometimes annoying for users, but I believe in the long run it is better to
be using a system that has a viable business model behind it.

One thing where Microsoft could compete would be support for third party apps.
I think there could be some possibilities for innovation on this area.
Something that would strike a balance between security and flexibility. With
GMail the options seem to be either gadgets (pretty limited) or giving full
IMAP access to 3rd party apps (too much power).

------
primigenus
This looks really nice, but what's up with the URL?

[https://dub002.mail.live.com/default.aspx?id=64855&owa=1...](https://dub002.mail.live.com/default.aspx?id=64855&owa=1&owasuffix=owa%2f#!/)

Doesn't look like outlook.com to me.

~~~
kooshball
looks like they haven't migrated all the boxes to the new outlook.com domain
yet

------
methodin
I would hope that if they want to sway people back they'd do what gmail did to
the garbage web apps around the time of its launch. I don't see anything
groundbreaking in the video/screenshots. Do is it offer anything unique?

~~~
saturdaysaint
The UIs on this and even iCloud's webmail are so much better than Gmail's that
I consider them functional improvements. They're clearly designed to make the
most common use cases ergonomic and let you focus on the task at hand. Unlike
Gmail, whose loud interface has no delineation between functional areas and
bombards me with seldom used options.

When e-mail is one tab among 12 in my browser, I find this kind of focus and
simplicity to be a real advantage.

------
mythz
Starting to see a trend with Metro apps where they're sacrificing UX for
candy.

The UX for this is a nightmare:

\- It's not clear that the Subject is editable (doesn't look like it's in a
text box nor does the label look like a placeholder).

\- Clicking on BCC opens a CC box with a drop-down that covers the BCC field.

\- The Send button looks like a main navigation menu, where I'd expect
clicking on it would navigate away from the page (and not send the email)

\- The Rich text buttons look part of the content, a light shade of grey
wouldn't add any pixels but would provide separation between function and
content

Back to gmail....

------
xfax
It'd be nice if Microsoft worked on their spam technology along with upgrading
the UI.

Just logged in to my @live.com account - 4814 messages in my Inbox, 17 in my
Spam folder.

Guess how many in my Inbox are legit messages? None.

------
johnbellone
There is currently a bug that I stumbled across that allows for spoofed emails
to be sent.

If you have a Live account that has an external e-mail address Microsoft
allows you to login here, without any additional authentication credentials,
and actually will send e-mails using the account's original address. In my
case this was my Gmail address.

Overall the requirement of Silverlight is a little annoying, but the same as
usual for Microsoft. The UI itself doesn't look bad, and I actually prefer it
to generic Gmail theme.

~~~
kytmizuno
You might have already verified your Gmail when you first signed up for the
Microsoft account.

------
matthewlyle
It says "Modern experience for modern browsers and devices.". Is that just an
empty sentence or are they using a better engine? The paragraph after just
talks about pixels and white space.

EDIT: More of the same, apparently: [http://blogs.office.com/b/microsoft-
outlook/archive/2012/07/...](http://blogs.office.com/b/microsoft-
outlook/archive/2012/07/31/introducing-outlook-com-modern-email-for-the-next-
billion-mailboxes.aspx)

------
dguido
People that use Outlook also tend to have more... valuable conversations in
their inbox and demand more in terms of security and privacy from their mail
providers. I hope that as part of courting this group of users to outlook.com,
Microsoft has invested in things like S/MIME, PGP, 2FA, and other security
enhancements. I haven't signed up, but can someone who has give an outline of
what security features they are advertising?

------
vhf
So I need to give my phone number to send an email or solve a captcha ?

I go for the captcha. 20 tries, no luck. Let's try audio. Impossible.

[EDIT] And now, a really funny one I just got :

    
    
      We've noticed some unusual activity in your Outlook account. To help protect you and
      everyone else, we've temporarily blocked your account.
      To unblock it, please {0}.
    

Well, alright, I'll {0}.

<http://i.imgur.com/auM4J.png>

------
blaines
I just signed up and the first thing I see is a bar of bing ads selling me
$500 TVs or something. On my gmail (I just checked) I don't even see an ad
(does web clip count?). You'd think a billion dollar tech company can afford
not to force product on me.

The second thing I see is, wow, this looks really nice.

But, that was the second thing, first I felt like I was at Best Buy. I don't
have a TV and I don't even want a TV, go away!

~~~
waterlesscloud
I see at least two ads on my gmail homepage at all times. One line above the
inbox, one below.

When I'm in an email, there will be one to several contextual ads (sometimes
hilariously mistargeted) on the right.

Do you not see these?

~~~
blaines
No, I don't see any! I just checked my gmail, and two apps accounts. Add a
screenshot? I would, but there's nothing to see here!

~~~
waterlesscloud
Do you have paid or non-profit apps accounts that are tied to the gmail? I
don't see ads on my non-profit apps/gmail

------
mike-cardwell
I can't see an option to disable the loading of external content. It just
seems to happen by default. Am I missing something, or does it not exist?

------
stove
The promo video heralds it as email without 'creepy ads', but I signed up and
without doing anything it displays 5 ads from restaurants in my town.

~~~
saurik
It can pull that off without reading your mail, which has been Microsoft's
primary marketing complaint re Gmail.

~~~
laconian
It's still copying strings and passing them between functions, which is still
a type of "reading" if you want to play by the fast and loose definitions of
Microsoft's marketing teams.

------
nilsbunger
The ads at the right really bother me. Product ads and deal ads with big $
signs and "% off" feels much more intrusive than a google text ad.

------
munaf
Finally, someone gets rid of the "Compose" button.

------
haydin
1- Get excited. 2- Create account. 3- Provide alternate e-mail address for
security during signup 4- Login to the site. 5- See that outlook.com found out
your facebook profile picture using your alternate e-mail address and started
using it in outlook.com 6- Get turned off immediately. 7- Close browser, to
never ever login to outlook.com, ever again

------
nell
Its definitely faster than the gmail interface.

~~~
mladenkovacevic
I'm sorry have to disagree with this. Just signed up for a fresh, empty
outlook account and every time I click on anything there is a noticeable 0.5-1
second lag not including the little slidey animations (I'll admit I AM on a
rather ancient computer here at work). But at the same time I have over a gig
of e-mail in my Gmail and almost every action is nearly desktop-fast (the
speed with which emails come up after doing a search is faster than a file-
search on windows)

------
dbecker
The desktop Outlook application epitomizes everything I hate about enterprise
software. I've been forced to use it by my last few employers, and outlook-
induced frustration has been a frequent source of conversation among my
colleagues.

If MS wants to start a new email service, the Outlook name is a sure guarantee
that we won't want to use it.

------
makecheck
I tried going to outlook.com and it immediately kicked me out with a "cookies
required" page. How is it sensible for any web site, anywhere, to make this
the visitor's first impression? Even if a site does need cookies _somewhere_ ,
I think it's ridiculous to design something that requires a cookie _all the
time_.

------
conductr
I love how they give a history of webmail progress but totally understate what
Gmail did for webmail and why it is so widely liked. Gmail did more than give
a bigger inbox. It changed the game for web interfaces, especially webmail.
Looks like Outlook is just imitating the Gmail look & feel.

------
jpxxx
I find it baffling Microsoft doesn't support IMAP access to any of their
e-mail properties. You're stuck with POP3 or else a webmail client when on the
desktop.

They do offer Exchange Activesync for mobiles, but without EWS or IMAP you
can't really complete the circle and give customers a decent email experience.

~~~
matsur
Outlook 2013 supports EAS.

~~~
jpxxx
Interesting, thank you! Now to wait for it to come to the Mac. :)

------
yajoe
If you are curious, this is a reskin of hotmail.com. It's still a separate
codebase from the Exchange-backed OWA. Check out the preview of Office 365 and
compare it to this experience, and you'll notice that the two are subtly
different.

This is very interesting to see them converge the brands.

------
b3b0p
Initial impressions are positive. It looks feature wise (space, the other
Office apps), that's comparable to Gmail for many people. I think I'll play
around with it to see if it sticks. It's nice to see some competition and MSFT
stepping up and improving this. Props.

------
ryanisinallofus
This looks so much better than the Metro-ized ribbon disaster of the desktop
preview that was released. It's actually looks a bit better that the new Gmail
which I like as well.

The problem with M$ products of course, which makes us all very skeptical is
how well it actually works.

------
olav
Does the new outlook.com support tags in addition to hierarchical folders?
This is what I love about GMail. Plus, I generally hate the way the MS WYSIWYG
editor has a live of its own and makes quoting of passages from received
emails into multi-font nightmares.

------
nuttendorfer
I just wish there was an open source project as good as GMail and maybe the
new Outlook for a browser-based email you can run everywhere. Native clients
are nice but they are native, so you can't take them with you (Different
devices, operating systems).

------
olav
Does the new outlook.com support tags in addition to hierarchical folders?
This is what I love about GMail. Plus, I generally hate the way the MS WYSIWYG
editor has a live of its own and makes quoting of passages from received
emails into multi-font nightmares.

\-- Olav

------
lightscalar
I tried to send an email from Outlook.com but failed the Captcha four times. I
tried the audio and thought maybe I was having a stroke because I couldn't
make out a damn word.

Clean design though. I'm sure it actually sends email too. I'll try again
later.

~~~
Sidnicious
I failed the captcha twice and got locked out with the message that I could
“try again later” (but still gave me another captcha to try). Awesome.

EDIT: I tried visiting outlook.com again a few minutes later and, hey, it
looks like I have an account! Hope I didn’t miss any important welcome steps
(like, I never got to pick an outlook.com email address)

EDIT: ah, but I get the captcha again when I try to do certain things. Still
haven't solved it — can’t tell if I’ve been rate limited. I’m definitely human
:)

------
sync
Captcha problems aside, it actually looks pretty slick.

It's nice to be able to grab sync@outlook.com too.

------
tjmc
The interface is currently broken in Australia where a "ninemsn" logo in the
top left corner has pushed the menu bar down to obscure the top of the menu
and mail listing panes. Other than that - looks like a big improvement to
Hotmail.

~~~
zhwang
If you do a hard refresh it should be fixed. And there's always the option of
filtering it `live.com##div.c_htr` :)

------
baby
I must really want to try this out because the signup took me 5 minutes.
Between giving my real number, chosing for an availble nickname and having to
retype more than 10 times the antispam code (it just wouldn't take my
input???)

~~~
k-mcgrady
Giving your number was optional. You could provide a second email address and
security question (you had to click a link just below the email address field
to use a security question instead of your number).

------
AutoCorrect
No thanks, I've had enough of Microsoft monopolies, I'm not helping them build
another. As recently as the Skydrive mess they've battered the customer. I'm
even moving off of gmail because Google is getting the same way.

------
tsurantino
I like how in their first chalkboard mock-up "Oldmail" looks identical to
Gmail.

------
msh
Seems nice, but unusable for using other than outlook.com addresses as I can
only use their SMTP server and they give no information for setting up SPF.

That causes other servers to think that email sendt from outlook.com is
spam....

------
sklivvz1971
It's just a rebrand of Live Mail, which is just a rebrand of Hotmail. Which is
a service not written by Microsoft, but which they bought.

A complete waste of time apart from the fanboys who can gloat at the Window 8
look... ;-)

------
oozcitak

        Your password can't be longer than 16 characters.
    
        ... we provide an inbox with ... rock solid account protection 
        powered by your Microsoft account ...
    

Those two do not chime that well.

------
peterbe
What. An. Awesome. Video!! I wish I could (afford to) make videos like that.

~~~
forgotusername
Pretty sweet job considering it's advertising an e-mail app, although I was
somewhat disappointed by the absence of unicorns.

------
sintaks
Curious video. While sketching out Google's Gmail UI, they place a sticky over
the advertisement area that says, "Creepy ads."

Yet what do I see upon logging in to Outlook.com? Crappy ads.

I'll take creepy (relevant) over crappy, thanks.

~~~
ivanbernat
So you'll rather have Google read every email and every attachment within your
inbox, track you around the web, YouTube etc to give you "relevant" ads -
rather just a few ads for other MS products?

------
halite
I created two aliases for my account and I can no longer sign-in to my
account. I tried my original id, and two new aliases and nothing works. Hope I
haven't lost everything in this migration!

------
troyk
Just maxed my captcha failures and have to try again later. Either I'm going
blind, I'm dumb, or their captcha is broken. Regardless, I hate captcha's --
there has to be a better way.

~~~
codegeek
Every form if using a capcha should have another checkbox saying "I cannot
figure out this stupid capcha and hence I am/can not going forward with this
form. You lost a potential customer"

------
chmars
'Your password can't be longer than 16 characters.'

The password requirement description only shows '8-character minimum; case
sensitive'.

Disappointing. And apparently no 2-factor authentication either … :(

------
hybrid11
I like the new integration with the social networks, and the UI theme.
However, I think the UI could benefit from more spacing between items, as it
feels very cluttered.

------
sazpaz
Finally, an alternative to GMail. The only problem is hundreds of different
one-time use websites that are registered to that email and send a ton of
"spammy" mails.

------
jeaguilar
So, instead of "creepy ads" along the right of the window ("Welcome to
Outlook.com", 0:12), we get the exact same creepy ads along the right of the
window?

------
cwbrandsma
More interesting that this is a Microsoft project and they are hosting their
videos from YouTube. Haven't they built their own video streaming service?

~~~
manojlds
Why should they? It is good that they are embracing youtube rather than try to
start promoting something of their own.

------
bunsenhoneydew
Seems to be up and down like a yoyo.

Also, there's an issue displaying correctly in Chrome on a Mac. I suppose
that's not MS's favourite software/hardware combo though.

------
shortlived
I'm just excited that I got a 4 character username!

------
sudhirj
I haven't used my microsoft ID in a while - open it up now and my profile
picture is pornographic. Interesting welcome to a new service.

------
tarouter
I was happy to see the interface and tried to sign up. Outlook.com would not
let me set my password bigger than 16 characters. wtf?

------
jpdelatorre
The only compelling feature for me on this is the Skype integration. I would
love to use GTalk/Hangout if only more people use it.

------
captain_spanner
Interesting to note that outlook.com considers foo.bar@outlook.com to be a
different account to foobar@outlook.com, unlike gmail

------
ap3rson
I don't understand... Why implement picture slideshow using Silverlight? I
thought Microsft was abandoning this piece of tech.

------
nshankar
It is terribly slow here in India. I agree, Gmail UI is pathetic. But it win
solely because of its speed, almost anywhere.

------
brown9-2
This preview features screenshots that you can not zoom in on or open the full
version. That seems a bit self-defeating.

------
tamersalama
Slightly OT - Office 365 is one of the worst services to setup I've ever
tried. I couldn't recommend for my clients.

------
ved_a
Looks seriously ugly in Firefox. Microsoft MUST embrace other browsers like FF
and Chrome to succeed and survive.

------
iambateman
"we remimagined email"..."there are 30% more emails visible."

Doesn't sound like a "reimagination". But the visuals are nice

------
webwanderings
I don't see any reason as of yet to go back to my HoTmail. It still looks the
same in the new outlook.com.

------
chris_mahan
I got a 403 -- Forbidden from the corporate firewall.

I thought microsoft made corporate-friendly products. Must try harder!

------
eddieplan9
_And there are no display ads or large search boxes that take up extra space_

I am wondering what this refers to :)

------
sunir
Wow. I love how they baked Skype right into Outlook.com. A great use of an
expensive acquisition.

------
andrewfelix
Just tried drag and drop attachments, and no joy. That's a deal breaker for
me. Sorry msoft.

------
epynonymous
i think microsoft is making a slight comeback, this is not groundbreaking, but
it seems to tie together several of their products and make them more
cohesive. i see somewhat of a strategy emerging here which is more like the
microsoft of old.

------
madoublet
So, I think the interesting thing here is that it does not seem to work at all
with IE8.

------
brongondwana
Totally broken in Opera. Fail.

------
Hominem
Wow, this is really nice. It even works in IE8, Gmail no longer works for me
in IE8

------
laconian
Besides the Metro thing, what's so modern/different about this versus Hotmail?

~~~
manojlds
The integration with other services like Facebook, Twitter, I believe?

~~~
laconian
Can't it be Hotmail v2? There looks to be vestiges of Hotmail/Live Mail
everywhere. So, a better question is: is this just added features and a
reskinning on top of Hotmail?

------
outside1234
wow - it looks fantastic - totally stripped down to the minimal needs and
everything is fast (try search).

Nice work again, Microsoft. Its almost sort of a trend now (Surface, Azure
VMs) - has Microsoft got its act together?

------
ya3r
It's funny that microsoft uses youtube for their video demos in their blogs!

------
FreshCode
"Your password can't be longer than 16 characters." Is this from Hotmail?

------
savories
Is this just a simplified Hotmail? It seems like mostly CSS tweaks. No?

------
jawns
So: Email integrated with social network feeds? That's kinda cool.

------
itsbits
i am reading lot of comments about not to trust Microsoft. Am ready to waste
time to read the problems/issues, common people faced while using Microsoft
products.

------
error
Why do the need to ways to verify that it's me. one is not enough!!

Cancel :)

------
coffeejunk
"Your password can't be longer than 16 characters." really?

------
lukejduncan
Anything is an improvement to Outlook Web Access

------
cpearce
The comments on that article looks bogus...

------
lisper
No POP/IMAP. No forwarding. No thsnks.

------
mhd
Does it still do top quoting?

~~~
mhd
Oh dearie, it basically elevated top quoting into a design principle, showing
a "conversation view" with the newest message on top (twitter-like). It seems
the era of replying to individual bits and pieces of an email is over -- or
even in general, long form email writing is a thing of the past.

------
executive
still super messy.. switches to hotmail screens in some of the settings pages.

------
jdelsman
How is this innovative or modern? They don't even sprite their icons.
Microsoft: don't waste my time.

------
dante_dev
seem to be gmail with a flat template, with a bit of sparrow style.

------
plasticgun
oh dear. i. actually. like. this.

Sigh ...

------
kin
is anyone else having trouble with the captcha?

~~~
newsreader
Lot's of trouble. Had to validate my account by having them send me a code
number via phone and then typing it into their page.

------
epynonymous
wait a minute, no support for imap?

------
tubbo
It's like they forced Facebook and an email client to mate.

