Hotmail is dead, Outlook.com has 400 million users

Microsoft has been actively migrating customers from Hotmail to its Outlook.com service over the past six weeks. That migration ends today, as Microsoft announces completion of, not only the big move, but also that the company now has instant success from the latest web-based email offering.

"When Outlook.com came out of preview, it was already the fastest growing email service thanks to your support. The last two months have seen the release of a new, modern Outlook.com calendar, a refreshed Outlook.com app for Android devices, two-factor authentication for your account, new international domains for people around the world, and the release of a preview of Skype calling in Outlook.com" boasts Microsoft's Dick Craddock.

The company does not stop there, though. It also boasts that Outlook online now hosts more than 400 million users, though this is due, in part, to wayward Hotmail customers who had no choice in this matter. Give Microsoft credit though, as the company managed to pull off a migration of 150 petabytes of data in just a six week period.

With the migration complete, Craddock promises that attention turns to new features. Plans include the removal of the "on behalf of" that appeared when a customer sent a message using a switched account such as Gmail. Microsoft also plans deep SkyDrive integration, allowing users to directly inset files and images from the cloud storage service.

Microsoft launched Outlook.com using a brand name that has been long known to both consumers and business customers and, at the same time, killed off another major service. So far, the company seems to be pulling this off, but tomorrow is a new day.

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