Windows Live Hotmail, formerly known as MSN Hotmail and commonly referred to simply as Hotmail, is a free web-based email service operated by Microsoft as part of its Windows Live group.

Hotmail was founded by Jack Smith and Sabeer Bhatia and launched in July 1996. Hotmail was one of the first free webmail services and was funded by the venture capital firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson. It was subsequently acquired by Microsoft in 1997 for an estimated $400 million, and shortly after it was rebranded as "MSN Hotmail". The current version, "Windows Live Hotmail", was officially announced in 2005 and released worldwide in 2007.

Windows Live Hotmail features 5GB of storage that expands as necessary, patented security measures, Ajax technology, and integration with Windows Live Messenger, Spaces, Calendar, and Contacts. It has over 270 million users worldwide as of 2008. It is available in 35 different languages.

The Hotmail development and operations teams are based in Mountain View, California.

Features

Advert: date=April 2009 Similar to other major webmail services, Hotmail uses Ajax programming techniques and supports the most popular internet browsers (Internet Explorer, Safari, and Mozilla Firefox). Some of its features include keyboard controls giving the ability to navigate around the page without using the mouse, the ability to search your messages including structured query syntax such as "from:ebay", message filters, folder-based organization of messages, auto-completion of contact addresses when composing, contact grouping, importing and exporting of contacts as CSV files, rich text formatting, rich text signatures, spam filtering and virus scanning, support for multiple addresses, and different language versions. POP3 access is now available for all Hotmail accounts.

Features

• Audio player

An integrated audio player which plays voicemails or MP3 audio clips after scanning the file for viruses.

• Integration

Hotmail integrates with other Windows Live services. Users can see if their Windows Live Messenger contacts are online and start instant messaging conversations from Hotmail. Integration with Windows Live People provides the ability to have contact information kept automatically up-to-date, as well as providing the What's New feed of users found on their Windows Live Profile. Windows Live Calendar will also be accessible through the Hotmail interface and meeting requests are automatically added to the user's calendar.

• Reading pane

The redesign of Hotmail was centered around an Outlook-style appearance, with a reading pane to view the inbox and messages at the same time, drag-and-drop functionality, keyboard selects for using the Ctrl or Shift keys to select messages and right-click context menus. As with Outlook, the reading pane can be displayed at the side of messages, below them, or not at all.