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Microsoft News

New Hotmail Integrates Office Features 90

Posted by StoneLion from the you-can-dress-it-up dept.
angry tapir writes "Microsoft is set to begin rolling out the latest enhancements to its Hotmail (warning: interstitial ad) web mail service, with an aim to reduce clutter and make it easier to send photos and handle Office documents. Microsoft is making a Web-based version of Office available from within Hotmail's Web interface that allows use of Microsoft document formats such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote."
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New Hotmail Integrates Office Features More

New Hotmail Integrates Office Features

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  • Hotmail? (Score:4, Funny)

    by netsavior ( 627338 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2010 @09:16AM (#32252416)
    I thought they went out of business in the mid 1990s, haven't heard of them since.

  • Wannabee fools. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by unity100 ( 970058 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2010 @09:17AM (#32252428) Homepage Journal
    where were they up until google did it ? they realized to do this just now ? all they are doing is 'me too' for a long while now.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by zkp ( 1634437 )
      Actually, some of the features sound pretty useful to me. The claimed improvement (we will have to see, but it seems plausible) is that they do a better job integrating real office documents.

      From a security standpoint, I have often wanted to be able to generate something like a one time password when logging in through a public computer.

      • One thing, OneNote (Score:2, Interesting)

        by xtracto ( 837672 )

        IFF, Microsoft offers the OneNote program online (for free) and manages to integrate it in a sensible way to Hotmail, I might be sold.

        Currently I am using Google Notebook (I was lucky to get an account before they closed the subscriptions) to organize my life. I have really tried to use other online alternatives (like Zoho) but they just do not feel right.

        On the other hand, the times when I have used OneNote, it has *really* impressed me. That is a really good program.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by ashridah ( 72567 )

          They're basically planning to, once the release of office 2010 hits the shelves next month. Onenote should be available via skydrive when office 2010 is released, so you can sync locally, on skydrive, with phones, etc.

    • I know! I liked hotmail because it meant I could escape the dreaded Power Point Presentation...

      Why must they make the laser sound effect for every letter flying in from the side of the screen. Make it stop!

      • (pew!)W(pew!)h(pew!)a(pew!)t (pew!)a(pew!)r(pew!)e (pew!)y(pew!)o(pew!)u (pew!)t(pew!)a(pew!)l(pew!)k(pew!)i(pew!)n(pew!)g (pew!)a(pew!)b(pew!)o(pew!)u(pew!)t(pew!)? L(pew!)a(pew!)s(pew!)e(pew!)r (pew!)s(pew!)o(pew!)u(pew!)n(pew!)d(pew!)s (pew!)a(pew!)r(pew!)e (pew!)a(pew!)w(pew!)e(pew!)s(pew!)o(pew!)m(pew!)e(pew!)!

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Daengbo ( 523424 )

        I watched the video introduction, and do you know what I thought about Powerpoint files? She e-mailed a file to herself so that she could work at home?!? What? Really?

        Come on. This isn't the 90s anymore. MS should at least have promoted SkyDrive, or if they wanted to promote in-email editing, said that she was working with a frie ... never mind. That second one would be stupid, too. There's no reason to attach a file so you or someone else can edit it at home. In short, I think the new Office-for-attachment

    • Re:Wannabee fools. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Attila Dimedici ( 1036002 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2010 @09:34AM (#32252642)
      Microsoft has been 'me too' since early days. Microsoft's strategy has been to let some other company prove there is a market for a particular function then write a competing product and gradually improve it (and modify the OS so that the competitor doesn't run as well) until they take over the market (see: Excel, Word, Internet Explorer...to name a few). It doesn't always work (see MS Money).

      • Microsoft's strategy has been to let some other company prove there is a market for a particular function then buy a competing product and gradually improve it (and modify the OS so that the competitor doesn't run as well) until they take over the market

        FTFY

    • They were busy making REAL money by selling REAL Office suite.

    • To be fair, Google also did a 'me too' since they bought the companies Upstartle and 2Web Technologies to get word processing and spreadsheet components of Google Docs. There were other paid services that did the same thing too. Also Microsoft haven't only just realised to do this now. It was announced back in October 2008.

      And frankly, who cares if it has been done before. There is no doubt that Microsoft's Office Web Apps will be a great step up from Google Docs in terms of functionality, but the requireme

      • I just read on the Wikipedia page [wikipedia.org] that Silverlight is optional. Oops, TFA says the same thing. It will be interesting to see how useful it is without the client side plug in.

    • where were they up until google did it ?

      Waiting for Google to do it.

      they realized to do this just now ?

      Right. Because Google hires geniouses while Microsoft hires stupid noobs.

      all they are doing is 'me too' for a long while now.

      Why hello there, Captain Obvious.

      Why does everyone act surprised or disgusted or flabberghasted that a huge successful company could maintain its success by building on other peoples' innovations? Either their business model is stupid, and their stock will tank and their sales will drop off and they will go bankrupt, or their business model works. I'm not saying I like their business model, or agree with it,

    • where were they up until google did it ? they realized to do this just now ? all they are doing is 'me too' for a long while now.

      I dunno where they've been... but what's to say that sending emails in doc format wont somehow become standard for Hotmail users? It'll look and work just like regular email when using Hotmail and such, but to those who dont (gMail users, Yahoo, etc), the email will have to be opened with provided or installed Word readers.

      That'd be interesting. I seem to remember something similar happening in the early days of Hotmail with non-standard text markup being used.

      I'm not suggesting this is their eventual m

  • Open Document (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Elektroschock ( 659467 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2010 @09:19AM (#32252448)

    I usually use Linux and I want to avoid lock-in. Microsoft Office supports the OpenDocument format, so how about these Microsoft services? And with OpenDocument I mean the Oasis format, not OpenXML (which I don't trust to be suffiently interoperable).

  • Would you like me to interconnect every program Microsoft has to offer to your account so that way you can be tied to us forever?

    Yes/No

    It looks like you've said "No". Are you sure?

    Yes/No

    I'm sorry, but it appears you keep clicking on "No". I believe you meant to click "Yes."

    Is this correct?

    Yes/Yes

    Ok, great! Downloading files....12567 of 9,324,456,765 Bytes downloaded.

    • Sorry for being the Boolean Nazi, but on the second question the "wrong" (i.e. anti-MS) answers is "Yes" (Are you sure? Yes ... it appears you keep clicking on "Yes").
      Apart from that... LOL

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Smauler ( 915644 )

      My parent's freeview recorder has a similar one to that last :

      Are you sure you want to cancel this reservation?
      Yes/Cancel

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ShecoDu ( 447850 )

      Step 3 is more like ???

      PROFIT!!!?

      No, seriously, step 3 is more like, "you have to press 'Yes' to continue"

      • No, seriously, step 3 is more like, "you have to press 'Yes' to continue"

        Unless I am missing what you are saying, that was step 3

  • Losing (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Jaysyn ( 203771 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2010 @09:20AM (#32252474) Homepage Journal

    Heh. Once again we have MS playing catch-up to Google. I thought Hotmail was turned into Windows Live or something like that anyhow.

    • It was, but it's still called hotmail and you can still reach it via www.hotmail.com (it just redirects).

    • Yes, never mind that Microsoft had an office suite for a good decade before Google even existed, and that its offline version has always had and continues to have a mound more useful features than Google Docs, and that its launched web version has many more features than Google Docs.

      You Google fanboys are tedious. You don't even know why you like them.

    • Re:Losing (Score:5, Informative)

      by Richard_at_work ( 517087 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2010 @10:10AM (#32253094)
      I don't see Google with an on-premise deployment option - how is that 'catch up'? (And no, I don't mean the desktop versions of Office, Microsoft has an on-premise version of its Office Web Apps so you don't have to trust your data to third party servers)

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by loudmax ( 243935 )

        I don't think Google is all that interested in on-premise software. On-premise is valued by sysadmins because they perceive themselves as in control of the system. Once online companies can start delivering software that equals the reliability and UI quality of local apps, you're going to see a huge migration away from locally maintained software. Obviously, that's a tall order and not something we're going to see for a few years. But give the cloud another decade and people will wonder that every mid-s

  • Spam? (Score:1)

    by pinkj ( 521155 )
    Why would I want to open all my spam in Office?

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by Jazz-Masta ( 240659 )

      Why would I want to open all my spam in Office?

      Because all the best email viruses have word and excel macros built in...you can't open those in Google Docs.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by NatasRevol ( 731260 )

      Not only spam, but everyone can read your spam, and your email, and your online office documents!

      The last paragraph of the article:
      "Later this year, Microsoft plans on introducing SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) encryption for Hotmail, although the company has not decided whether it will be optional or not, Mehta said."

      Nice.

  • sigh... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by AlexiaDeath ( 1616055 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2010 @09:23AM (#32252510)
    They are several years late. Again. And Google gives me a lot more formats, all of the OO ones for example and an online PDF reader, best thing since sliced bread. And it does this without the need for closed clumsiy plugins like MS-s silverlight.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by dward90 ( 1813520 )
      While it's true that Google supports more file types, it shouldn't be unreasonable to assume that Hotmail's integration with MS Office will be substantially more seamless.

      Google Docs is still pretty atrocious at handling any formatting quirks of Office file types, and given that MS Office is still the most popular suite to format things in (for better or worse), Hotmail could have a strong selling point above Google in this regard.

      *Disclosure* I use Google Docs almost exclusively for my academic and pe
      • So Ill forward any particularly difficult MS document I get to my hotmail account and wait until Im behind a windows computer with silverlight available.

        Or not.

        That windows computer (my work laptop, parents computer, whatever) has most likely some version of Office installed. So Ill just use that.

        • Re: (Score:1, Redundant)

          by Richard_at_work ( 517087 )
          You can use the web apps without silverlight - it degrades nicely. Silverlight adds additional features, but its not required for basic use. Even without Silverlight, these web apps are certainly more than equal to those from Google - add the SL option there for those who wish to use it and you have a very nice offering.

          • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

            by AlexiaDeath ( 1616055 )
            Nice, yes. But not enough to cause mass move over from Google.

            • Why not? Have you used it? What are you basing your opinion on?

              If a business already has Office under certain volume licenses from Microsoft, they already have a license to deploy the on-premise version. Businesses are going to use this massively.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by xtracto ( 837672 )

        The truth is Google Docs is still nothing more than the web version of Write/Wordpad (maybe only with the added ability to put tables... which do not work so well). A much better implementation is the one from Zoho.

        If the online version of Word is as complete as say, OpenOffice then it will be much better than Google Docs.

    • Late, yes... (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Benfea ( 1365845 )
      ...but I'm betting this will be a heck of a lot more robust than Google Docs. Competition is a good thing.
    • I was so pissed to find out Netflix chose Silverlight to deliver steaming movies. You're actually complementing it when you call Silverlight, clumsy. "Flaming paper bag full of doggie dirt" is more accurate.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by orient ( 535927 )
      I was disappointed to see that Google would fail to import may OOWriter document (.odt created with OO 3.2) and I had to convert it to .doc before I could import it into Google Docs...

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Daengbo ( 523424 )

        Umm. I just imported an OOWriter doc. Are you using the incomplete, new interface or something?

  • Am I the only one that learned a new word today? Interstitial advertisements. Now I know the proper term to use when I curse those god-damn ads!

  • Let me think ... integrated e-mail, search engine and online office suite. I'm sure I've seen that before. Now it comes to bing and hotmail, but I'm sure I've seen it in some other search engine that also has an e-mail service. I can't seem to remember the name right now.

    Anyway, Congratulations microsoft! Definitely original and innovative new product, as usual.

  • Slashdot readers still allow their browsers to display ads? That's adorable.
    But seriously, all I use my Hotmail account for is logging into messenger (using an app called 'A-Patch' to remove ads there as well) and as a dumping ground for spam.

    • (using an app called 'A-Patch' to remove ads there as well).

      A-Patch always seemed very very suspicious to me on casual glance whenever I went looking for something to get rid of MSN ads.

  • They can spend millions in trying to integrate office in to hotmail and yet every time I enter my user-id I have to put the "@hotmail.com" Really? You couldn't check to see if I put in hotmail.com in my address bar and then just assume that? I can understand if I linked from MSN.com and you gave a drop down for it. At least make it a drop down so I don't have to type the damn thing out.

  • I guess since it's already been done, we don't want anyone else to do it. Competition is bad. And stupid. Once an idea has been done, it's futile to try to improve on it in any way, or implement it for your own clients.

    Most of the Slashdot posts so far appear to be saying that it's "just Microsoft playing catchup, as always" as if that is always a bad thing. I guess Microsoft should be the lead innovator in every single area, and if another company comes out with a good idea, Microsoft should not offer

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