Windows Live Mail Desktop Beta Update

Last week Microsoft finally released their new and much more competitive version of Windows Live Hotmail to the general public.   As a follow up, Microsoft has released a beta update to their desktop version of their e-mail service, Windows Live Mail Desktop. 

The first news?   Yes, another name change.  They are changing the name from Windows Live Mail Desktop (beta) to Windows Live Mail.  Could it get any more confusing?!?

It looks like this will also replace Microsoft’s Outlook Express, which comes installed by default on most computers that use Windows.   Here are the other features you can expect with the new version of Windows Hotmail Desktop Windows Live Mail Desktop Windows Live Mail:

New and improved UI:  Cleaner design, and now with Aero support! 

Setup and account migration improvements:  Smoother experience overall - you will now have fewer steps in order to get started with the client.

More parity with OE and Windows Mail:  S/MIME and LDAP support are just two of the features that we’ve been working on for WLM which will bring us more parity with our other free Mail clients.

Performance and stability:  The new product will be faster and more robust than WLMd.

No Ads:  Yes, it’s true – there will be no graphical ads in the WLM beta build.

Some people have asked when Google will take the time to make a desktop version of their e-mail?   I’m not so sure they ever will.   GMail works great with Thunderbird, and Google doesn’t seem to want to step on any toes over at Mozilla.  Microsoft has a big advantage in that they can include Windows Live Mail with al Windows installs, which would help to suggest Hotmail to the average Windows user.   Google doesn’t have an operating system (at this time), so there wouldn’t be much benefit from pursuing this in my opinion.  

As a side note, if you want to see more about Microsoft’s humorous Windows Live Hotmail marketing campaign, you can see their new videos at NewLiveHotmail.com.