Microsoft Outlook.com crosses 1 million users within 12 hours

Microsoft has revealed via Twitter it has over 1 million registered users for its just-announced Outlook.com email service. A preview for the revamped webmail service, which will phase out Hotmail was announced less than 12 hours ago. It is unclear at the moment how many users migrated from Hotmail and how many were new signups but we expect Microsoft to drop some numbers sooner than later. The feat is incredible considering the number of people ranting on Twitter who want to check out Outlook but have not been able to get past Microsoft’s seemingly undecipherable CAPTCHA codes.
Outlook.com is Microsoft’s attempt to take on Gmail after neglecting Hotmail for years as its rivals continued to innovate and add new features. To Microsoft’s credit, however, Outlook.com has a much better user interface and features than most popular webmail services and integrates well with other services like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Gmail as well as Microsoft’s own Office Web Apps, Skydrive and eventually Skype.