On July 4, 1996, Sabeer Bhatia and Jack Smith commercially launched Hotmail, one of the internet's first webmail services.
Hotmail was acquired by Microsoft (MSFT) in 1997 for an estimated $400 million and relaunched as MSN Hotmail, later rebranded to Windows Live Hotmail as part of the Windows Live suite of products.
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Hotmail became the world's largest webmail service with more than 30 million active members reported by February 1999.
Microsoft phased out Hotmail in October 2011 and relaunched the service as Outlook.com in 2012.
With roughly 400 million users, Outlook is the second most widely used email service in the world, coming in behind Google's (GOOGL) Gmail, which has about 1.8 billion users.
And now Outlook is taking another step that Apple (AAPL) users will likely appreciate.
The software giant made Outlook for Mac for to use as of March 6. Apple users were no longer need a Microsoft 365 subscription or Office license to use it.
“Whether at home, work or school, Mac users everywhere can easily add Outlook.com, Gmail, iCloud, Yahoo! or IMAP accounts in Outlook and experience the best mail and calendar app on macOS,” Jeremy Perdue, Outlook Product Manager said in a blog post.
Users Can Manage All Their Email Accounts
With Outlook, Perdue said, “you’ll get a modern and native user interface that has been designed and optimized for macOS.”
Users of Outlook for Mac, which Microsoft redesigned in 2020, will be able to view their agendas using a widget and see reminders in the Notification Center
The all-accounts view will let users with multiple accounts manage all their inboxes at once, without having to switch back and forth.
The Handoff feature will allow users to pick up tasks where they left off between iOS and Mac devices.
Microsoft is providing widget support for Outlook’s calendar feature and plans to include a menu bar peek option in the near future to see calendar entries within the main Outlook for Mac app.
Outlook Profiles, which Perdue said is coming soon, will allow users to connect their email accounts to Apple’s Focus experience.
Outlook for Mac is available for free on the App Store.
In January, Microsoft posted better-than-expected second quarter earnings, with stable growth rates for its key cloud computing division and solid gains from its business unit.
However, the company forecast current quarter revenues for its intelligent cloud division of between $21.7 billion and $22 billion, a tally that missed Refinitv forecasts.
