Microsoft Launches Tool That Allows For Gmail Importation to Outlook.com
December 16, 2013
By Oliver VanDervoort, Contributing Writer
It may not seem like a free email service market would start much of a war, but Microsoft (News - Alert), Yahoo and Google are all waging some sort of a war for subscribers. Microsoft was clearly trailing that particular war until they managed to upgrade and soup up their client. Formerly known as Hotmail, the updated and better email client has been given the same name as its separate, installable client in Outlook. Now Microsoft has launched a whole new salvo in the email wars with the launch of a migration tool.
This tool is supposed to make it that much easier for users to come over from Gmail and start using the Outlook email service. The process is a simple, step by step affair that transfers messages from Gmail to the webmail service. If there is a drawback to the tool, it is that it does not bring over calendar data. This tool is just the latest in a series of moves that Microsoft has taken when it comes to Outlook. Earlier this month the company doubled down on protecting its customer’s data. That’s a big deal when talking about free email services and the millions of people who companies want to have sending and receiving messages.
Naoto Sunagawa wrote about the new migration tool in a company blog post late last week. He also detailed out the way this tool will allow you to keep your Gmail address for certain uses if you feel so inclined. "The structure of your inbox, including read/unread status of your emails, will be preserved. The new tool will even set up your Gmail address as a 'send-only' account so you can continue to send email from your @gmail.com address, right from Outlook.com, if you still want to," Sunagawa wrote.
Microsoft has been hitting Google (News - Alert) in a number of different ways, all in regards to the two companies’ webmail services. The “Scroogled” campaign is one salvo in which Microsoft attempts to convince customers that Google doesn’t care about their email privacy. While these moves haven’t paid off in the webmail wars just yet, it’s too early to tell whether they could help in the long run.
Edited by Cassandra Tucker