Hotmail dead, reborn as social-friendly Outlook

Microsoft unveiled a revamped, Facebook-friendly version of its free, online email service on Tuesday in an attempt to reverse market share losses to Google's fast-growing Gmail.

The world's largest software company is renaming its Hotmail service Outlook, giving it a sharp new look, social network links, and new features for handling the tide of junk and mass mail that swamps many users.

Hotmail was still the world's largest online mail service as of June, according to the latest comScore figures available, with 324 million users, or about 36 per cent of the global market.



But it is losing customers to Google's Gmail, the fastest-growing rival, which now has about 31 per cent of the market. Yahoo Mail is static with about 32 per cent.