According to BetaNews, Microsoft is preparing to launch their Windows Live Hotmail service in the United States sometime in May. It has already been launched in India and Belguim, and other countries like France and the UK should expect it in the next few days.
When Microsoft decided to create a new mail service, it started as Windows Live Mail. Then in February, they made the announcement that they were taking the best of both Worlds, and the final product would be Windows Live Hotmail.
The new service will look and act more like Outlook using an Ajax platform, a paneled interface, and right click menus. For example, you can right click on a message and get a menu of options like reply or delete. I’ve been a part of the Beta for several months now, and the image to the right shows what the right-click menu looks like. Windows users are accustomed to right-clicking, and incorporating this with an online service makes complete sense.
With Yahoo Mail Beta and Windows Live Hotmail taking the “Outlook” approach, there aren’t many notable online services left that have more of a “classic” email interface.
Hopefully this will lead to the @live.com addresses finally being released, although there haven’t been any hints that this will be coming.
I actually like the new Windows Live Hotmail. Way better than the old Hotmail and they actually support Firefox. Now if they only up the (full AJAX) support for Opera so that I can view my email just the same on my Wii.
I think it looks a lot better, and the right-click option is really nice too. The old Hotmail was definitely due for an upgrade because it was starting to look out-dated.
I don’t think Hotmail has actually ever gotten a redesign now that I think about it? Maybe a few things here and there…so I wonder what all of the current users are going to think about this when they get switched over? Or maybe Microsoft will give people the choice to switch or not to.