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Microsoft feels heat, goes Live

Available in 17 languages, it is relied upon by billions to keep in touch, even though their home addresses and phone numbers change over the years.

But Microsoft is shying away from the 10-year-old name and hoping to freshen up its image as services such as Google's Gmail creep up on its market share.

While Hotmail still dominates the free email universe, its growth in the past year was just 16 per cent, compared with Gmail's 114 per cent.

In an effort to snare new customers, the company is trialling an upgraded email system to be called Windows Live, which will look more like Microsoft Outlook and is touted to be more user-friendly and intuitive.

New email customers will have an address ending in live.com.au which, along with Hotmail accounts, will be accessed through www.live.com. Microsoft has promised not to make the hotmail.com addresses redundant.

"As we begin to roll out Windows Live mail, new addresses will become available, but using a new address is entirely optional for customers," the chief executive of ninemsn, Martin Hoffman, said in a statement on Saturday.

A senior analyst with Nielsen//NetRatings Australia, Andrew Eckford, said the rebranding made sense. "Gmail has been growing quite rapidly compared with Hotmail but that's because Hotmail has been around a lot longer." [smh.com.au]

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