Microsoft Replaces Hotmail by Outlook.com

To take on Google's extremely popular Gmail, Microsoft introduced the preview version of Outlook.com, a new free web-based personal email service with cleaner user interface and integration with social networks like Facebook and Twitter.

The new email service comes with "virtually unlimited" storage and integrates Skype, the popular video chat service that Microsoft bought last year.

"We think the time is right to reimagine email. So today, we're introducing a preview of Outlook.com," Chris Jones, a Microsoft corporate vice president, wrote in a blog post.

Microsoft said that with Outlook.com, there are 30 percent more messages visible in the inbox than similar web-based email services most users now are used to.

The new email service also enables users to connect to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other on-line social networks, and chat and video call their friends.

Microsoft noted that the Outlook.com service will not scan users' email content or attachments and sell the information to advertisers, therefore will not show advertisements in users' personal conversations.

The new Outlook.com service is expected to eventually replace Hotmail, the web-based email service brought by Microsoft in 1997.

According to internet analytics company comScore, Hotmail had more than 324 million unique visitors in June, compared with about 290 million for Yahoo's mail service and 278 million for Google's Gmail.