Microsoft Corp unveiled a revamped, Facebook-friendly version of its free, online email service on Tuesday in an attempt to reverse market share losses to Google Inc's fast-growing Gmail.

The world's largest software company is renaming its Hotmail service Outlook, giving it a sharp new look, social network links, and new features for handling the tide of junk and mass mail that swamps many users.

Hotmail was still the world's largest online mail service as of June, according to the latest comScore figures available, with 324 million users, or about 36 percent of the global market.

But it is losing customers to Google's Gmail, the fastest-growing rival, which now has about 31 percent of the market. Yahoo Mail is static with about 32 percent.

In a bid to recapture growth, Microsoft is renaming the service Outlook, a name familiar to most corporate workers who use Microsoft's Office email application, and sprucing up the whole experience. Hotmail users will be prompted to switch over to the new service over the next few months.

Hotmail, launched in 1996, was one of the first online email services, but it has not been updated by Microsoft for eight years.

The new look is clean and uncluttered, featuring lots of white space, reminiscent of Google's recent makeover of Gmail. Relatively unobtrusive advertisements appear in a column to the right of the screen when looking at folders. They do not appear when a message is open.

Users can link up with their Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+ accounts, to see the latest updates from friends and contacts. Online chat is available via Facebook.

The new mail service also allows easy use of Microsoft's Internet-based products, such as SkyDrive for storing documents, Office Web Apps for working away from a PC, and will eventually have Skype video chat built in.

滬江英語快訊：微軟日前將Hotmail更名為Outlook。改版后的新網(wǎng)絡(luò)郵箱服務(wù)更為直觀，增加了社交網(wǎng)站鏈接、垃圾郵件處理等新功能。微軟此舉意在與谷歌的Gmail相抗衡。自從微軟1996年推出hotmail郵箱后，多年來幾乎沒有大的變革。與此同時(shí)，互聯(lián)網(wǎng)發(fā)展迅速，谷歌的Gmail、雅虎的Yahoo Mail紛紛崛起，和Hotmail一起形成了“三足鼎立”的局面。Hotmail更名Outlook后，主要就是增加了社交網(wǎng)站鏈接的功能，加上outlook系統(tǒng)中原有的大量公司用戶，微軟的這次改名行動(dòng)可謂是一場(chǎng)“逆襲”。

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