Microsoft clearly wants to get users of Google's Gmail service to switch over to Microsoft's Hotmail. Microsoft has been making some changes and improvements to Hotmail in the last few months and today, via the Windows Live blog site, Microsoft's Dharmesh Mehta makes his pitch to Gmail users and also shows how to quickly make the move to using Hotmail.
One of the reasons Mehta has for picking Hotmail instead of Gmail is Hotmail's integration with Facebook. He states, "You can update your Facebook status, chat with Facebook friends, view their updates, and comment right from your Hotmail inbox. You can't do this from Gmail."
He also says that Hotmail allows people to use Microsoft's Skydrive cloud service to share hundreds of photos and files in one Hotmail email message. Naturally, Hotmail integrates well with Microsoft Office. allowing people to view and even edit Office documents for free inside a Hotmail message. Finally Mehta says Microsoft's recent change which allows Hotmail to better handle "graymail" is an advantage over Gmail.
The above video shows how Hotmail users can add their Gmail and other accounts so they can be access via Hotmail. If Gmail users want to completely dump the service for Hotmail, Mehta says that after establishing a new Hotmail account they can use a tool called TrueSwitch that will import all of a user's Gmail messages and contacts into the Hotmail account. TrueSwitch will also forward all Gmail messages to the new Hotmail account for 90 days.
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