Microsoft updates Outlook email

MICROSOFT HAS revealed a new version of its free personal email service as it battles against the popularity of alternative services such as Gmail.

The new Outlook.comemail service, a preview of which was made available in more than 100 markets from yesterday, offers users a cleaner, uncluttered interface, and new ways to manage mass mails from newsletters, deals sites and others.

The services can be integrated with social networks such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn to keep contacts up to date and see updates from friends.

It also includes the ability to use instant messaging chat from Windows and Facebook.

Existing users of the Live and Hotmail services can choose to upgrade their accounts to the new service.

Microsoft’s Brian Hall described the launch as an “exciting” day for Microsoft.

“This is a modern email service that is designed for the kinds of things that we do today in email, whether it is keeping up with friends and recognising that you do that across multiple networks including Facebook and Twitter, whether it is managing all of the mails that come in from newsletters, to daily deals, to photos to documents, and doing it in a way that works not only on the web but also on tablet, smartphones or PC,” he said.

Microsoft has also promised its new service won’t put ads in personal mail, unlike other services.

“We think that privacy is incredibly important,” Mr Hall said.

The service also plans to integrate Skype for video messaging in the future. Microsoft’s existing Hotmail service has about 324 million users. – (Additional reporting: Reuters)