Mobile Computing News

Photo: Microsoft

The technology press was invited to a special Microsoft event, where the software giant previewed its latest build of Hotmail. Early impressions? It looks good but it sure will take a lot to pry Gmail converts away from the service.

First things first – alignment

It’s clear that Gmail was central to the Hotmail team’s discussions in their planning how to rollout the service, and this is evidenced in the product composition. Hotmail now has greater storage, an improved spam filter, an optional threaded conversations feature, and chat integrated elegantly into the service (finally!). Additionally, the Microsoft Hotmail team spent time optimizing for mobile browsers, and especially for the current generation of smartphones like the BlackBerrys and iPhones of the world.

The notable features

Gmail trail blazed by having YouTube embedding both in Google Talk and in emails, but Microsoft Hotmail is taking it a step further by embedding Hulu, Justin.tv, and the aforementioned YouTube.

Microsoft Hotmail also has smart slideshow tools, both for attachments in mails as well as links that lead to SmugMug and Flickr.

Photo: YouTube

A feature that really interests us – and anybody who’s ever subscribed to a newsletter you just keep marking as spam, which is nearly everybody – is the ‘sweep’ tool. What this does is it automatically deletes all communications from things you’ve willingly signed up for without dubbing the sender a spammer.

The odd omission

In a world where social networking may become the defacto way people use the web, the omission of thorough social integration in the new Hotmail is strange. Startups like Posterous have shown the value of getting your hooks into everything and simply, while Microsoft itself with its Windows Phone 7 Series and Kin phones seem to understand the value of social networking, so this omission leans more toward laziness than a gross oversight.

Early impressions are pretty solid, with a renewed drive in Hotmail being legitimately viable. However, getting Gmail ninjas to switch will be highly unlikely unless Microsoft has an ace in their pocket they have yet to reveal.