MSN Hotmail, er, Windows Live Mail become Windows Live Hotmail

Richard Sim, Senior Product Manager of the Hotm…. er, MSN Hotmai…, uh, Windows Live Mai…, mnnf, Windows Live Hotm… ech, the next version of Hotmail, had this to say in a semi-official blog posting:

When we decided to build a new web mail service several years ago, we … started from scratch and built a whole new service from the ground up – and we called this Windows Live Mail. As we brought users onboard to this new service and had them kick the tires, we learned quickly that users loved it. We knew we were onto a good thing. We also found that many users were extremely loyal to the Hotmail brand and perceived the beta as an upgrade to Hotmail. In fact, our most loyal users have been very happy with Hotmail for years and while they loved the improvements in the beta, some were a bit confused by name change.

The upshot? The next version of Hotmail will not be called Windows Live Mail. Nope. It’ll be Windows Live Hotmail. See the improvement?

That blog entry has this insightful response from a Hotmail user named David:

You’re introducing an all new product completely different from Hotamail, and yet you’re still calling it hotmail? Like others have said, Hotmail sucked, calling this Hotmail will make new users think they’re not getting anything new and that it’s still going to be the same old crappy email service.

Just to make sure you understand Microsoft’s mail offerings, there are now almost a dozen different names floating around. Here’s the scorecard – for this week:

Outlook is part of some versions of Microsoft Office. Er, Microsoft Office System. For example, Outlook 2003 ships with Office 2003 Student & Teachers Edition but Outlook 2007 does not ship with Office 2007 Home & Student Edition. Confused yet? Keep going.

Microsoft Office Outlook Live “combines the strengths of Microsoft Office Outlook and MSN(R) Hotmail(R) to help consumers more efficiently manage their e-mail and personal information. Outlook Live connects MSN Hotmail with the advanced e-mail tools found in Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 for Subscription Services, a new downloadable subscription version of Microsoft Office Outlook 2003, enabling consumers to manage their multiple e-mail accounts, contacts, calendars and other online information all in one place.”. It was taken seriously by perhaps a dozen people, and (as best I can tell) dropped like a hot potato in Office 2007, er, the 2007 Microsoft Office System. Microsoft will still sell you the service.

Then there’s Outlook Web Access, which is a way of using Outlook from the Internet, for companies with hefty servers that can stand the strain of hosting OWA.

Outlook Express is in Windows XP (it originated as part of Internet Explorer, but OE seems to have become a fixture of Windows itself). Outlook Express doesn’t look or act anything at all like Outlook.

Windows Mail is the new version of Outlook Express, slightly refurbished for Windows Vista. Except for spam filtering and quick searching (which comes compliments of the Vista search engine), Windows Mail is almost identical to Outlook Express. Confused now?

Then there’s the venerable MSN Hotmail. That’s the name you see when you go to www.hotmail.com. Microsoft bought Hotmail in 1999, changed its name to Microsoft Hotmail shortly afterward, then to MSN Hotmail. That appears to be the current “official” name of the Web site, if not the name of the product.

About a year ago, Microsoft announced that it was re-writing Hotmail and the new service would be called Windows Live Mail. If you log on to www.hotmail.com, you see the name “Windows Live Mail” plastered in many places. Currently, Windows Live Mail is in open beta. To be charitable, it’s slow and buggy. To be more accurate, it’s nearly unusable unless you have a very fast Internet connection, and even then it’ll leave you shaking your head.

Now it appears that the new version of Windows Live Mail, if it ever comes out of beta, will be called Windows Live Hotmail. I guess Microsoft discovered that people don’t identify with the “Windows Live” name as much as the “Hotmail” name. Best to meld the two, I guess.

It’s not at all clear if you will be able to use Outlook and/or Outlook Express, er, Windows Mail with Hotmail, er, Windows Live Hotmail. At one point Microsoft charged extra if you wanted to get at your Hotmail mail with Outlook or Outlook Express. Various software developers obliged with tools that bypassed Microsoft’s restrictions. No word yet on whether the free version of Windows Live Hotmail will become an island unto itself.