BEC阅读：BEC中级阅读：Hotmail更名Outlook

　　Microsoft Corp unveileda revamped, Facebook-friendly versionof its free, online email service on Tuesday in an attempt to reversemarket share losses to Google Inc's fast-growing Gmail.

　　The world's largest software company is renaming its Hotmail service Outlook, giving it a sharp new look, social network links, and new features for handling the tide of junk and mass mail that swampsmany users.

　　Hotmail was still the world's largest online mail service as of June, according to the latest comScore figures available, with 324 million users, or about 36 percent of the global market.

　　But it is losing customers to Google's Gmail, the fastest-growing rival, which now has about 31 percent of the market. Yahoo Mail is staticwith about 32 percent.

　　In a bid to recapture growth, Microsoft is renaming the service Outlook, a name familiar to most corporateworkers who use Microsoft's Office email application, and sprucingup the whole experience. Hotmail users will be promptedto switch over to the new service over the next few months.

　　Hotmail, launched in 1996, was one of the first online email services, but it has not been updated by Microsoft for eight years.

　　The new look is clean and uncluttered, featuring lots of white space, reminiscentof Google's recent makeover of Gmail. Relatively unobtrusiveadvertisements appear in a column to the right of the screen when looking at folders. They do not appear when a message is open.

　　Users can link up with their Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+ accounts, to see the latest updates from friends and contacts. Online chat is available via Facebook.

　　The new mail service also allows easy use of Microsoft's Internet-based products, such as SkyDrive for storing documents, Office Web Apps for working away from a PC, and will eventually have Skype video chat built in.