Hotmail wiki

Here's a summary of Hotmail's history and features based on the Wikipedia article:

History

Hotmail was founded in 1996 by Sabeer Bhatia and Jack Smith. It was one of the first free web-based email services, allowing users to access their email accounts from any internet-connected computer. Hotmail was acquired by Microsoft in 1997 for $400 million.

Features

Hotmail offered several features that made it popular:

  1. Free email: Hotmail was one of the first free web-based email services, allowing users to create an email account without paying any subscription fees.
  2. Web-based access: Users could access their email accounts from any internet-connected computer, without the need to install any software.
  3. POP3 and IMAP support: Hotmail supported both POP3 and IMAP protocols, allowing users to access their email accounts using third-party email clients.
  4. Large storage capacity: Hotmail offered a generous storage capacity of 250 MB per account, which was a significant amount at the time.
  5. Customizable: Users could customize their email accounts with custom domain names, email addresses, and signatures.

Impact

Hotmail's impact on the internet was significant:

  1. Popularized web-based email: Hotmail helped popularize web-based email, making it easy for people to access their email accounts from anywhere.
  2. Increased internet adoption: Hotmail's popularity helped increase internet adoption, as more people became comfortable using the internet for email and other purposes.
  3. Competition: Hotmail's success led to the creation of other web-based email services, such as Yahoo! Mail and Gmail.

Discontinuation

In 2013, Microsoft announced that it would be discontinuing Hotmail and replacing it with Outlook.com, a new web-based email service. Hotmail accounts were migrated to Outlook.com, and the Hotmail domain was retired.

Legacy

Hotmail's legacy can be seen in the many web-based email services that followed, including Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, and Outlook.com. Hotmail's innovative approach to email and its impact on the internet have made it an important part of internet history.