In case you didn’t notice, Microsoft today unveiled the first look at their newest webmail product replacing Hotmail, Outlook.com (don’t worry Hotmail diehards, you can still revert to the old interface if you want to…for now). After playing around with their new webmail offering, I’m seriously considering migrating over from Gmail.

 
Outlook.com Features:

• Sleek, new interface – Outlook.com, Microsoft’s new cloud mail service, has a fresh and intuitive design, enriches conversations by connecting to Facebook and Twitter, and provides a smart inbox with the power of Office and SkyDrive.
  
   
  

 
 
 

• Chat from your mailbox - From anywhere on Outlook.com, customers like Matt Millmann (shown here) can chat with friends who are using Facebook Chat or Outlook. The big difference here is that you can chat with people on Facebook vs. only Microsoft.
  
   
  

 
 
 

• Showtime - Photo emails are brought to life with slideshows that launch directly out of Outlook.com with one click.
  
   
  

 
 
 

• Fully featured attachments – Outlook.com offers the ability to open, edit and share Word, Excel and PowerPoint files from anywhere with full fidelity.
  
   
  

 
 
 

• Excel from the mailbox - Outlook.com offers a clean, easy way to edit documents from the Inbox. In this example, a family’s budget is shown in Excel.
  
   
  

 
 
 

• Contacts Synced Live Across Multiple Sites -For an up-to-date address book, the latest contact info that friends share on Facebook and LinkedIn is integrated into Outlook.com.
  
   
  

 
 
 

• Coming Soon – Video Calls with Skype - Skype will be coming to Outlook.com soon, so people can video call Skype or Outlook friends, even if neither have the Skype client installed.