The new Outlook.com email service is getting Google chat integration. Microsoft’s Outlook Blog today announced that within a few days all users will be able to log in to Google Chat in Outlook.com.
The re-branding of Hotmail.com to Outlook.com, with the associated closure of the MSN chat service has been quite disruptive for users. But the cleaner design is definitely better. Skype is being integrated, Facebook chat is already available and now with the addition of Google Chat, Outlook.com is more flexible than Google’s Gmail. You can also chat from SkyDrive, which is getting much better integration with Outlook.
There are some compromises. Google Chat in Outlook.com will not support audio or video like the Gmail version. To add your Google contacts to Outlook.com, you need to authorize Outlook to have access to your Google contacts, after which you’ll be able to chat to them wherever they are signed in.
According to Microsoft, 400 million people already use Outlook.com, and they are hoping that Google Chat will bring more people over from Gmail.
[souce: Outlook blog]
