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.
Currently the largest web based email service.
Hotmail was founded by Sabeer Bhatia and Jack Smith. It was one of the first web based e-mail services, and was launched in July 1996, its name and capitalization refers to html, the encoding language used by the world wide web.
It 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 otmail. The current version, windows live hotmail, was officially announced in 2005 and released worldwide in 2007.
Hotmail was sold to Microsoft in December 1997 for a reported $400 million, and it joined the msn group of services. Hotmail quickly gained in popularity as it was localized for different markets around the globe and became the world largest webmail service, and reported more than 30 million active members by February 1999.
A security issue appeared in Hotmail during this period that permitted anybody to log into any hotmail account using the password it was at the time called the most widespread security incident in the history of the Web.
Microsoft new email system was announced on November 1, 2005, under the codename Kahuna, and a beta version was released to a few thousand testers. Other webmail enthusiasts also wanting to try the beta version could request an invitation granting access.
The new service was built from scratch and emphasized three main concepts of being faster, and safer. New versions of the beta service were rolled out over the development period, and by the end of 2006 the number of beta testers had reached the millions.
The Hotmail brand was planned to be phased out when Microsoft announced that the new mail system would be called Windows Live Mail, but the developers soon backtracked after beta testers were confused with the name change and preferred the already well known Hotmail name, and decided on Windows Live Hotmail.
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