After several years of testing, Microsoft has declared victory and brought to an end the beta for the new Hotmail service.  Rebranded "Windows Live Hotmail" the service will begin migrating its more than 20 million accounts starting this coming Monday.  The switch however won't be forced at first, users will be presented with an option of which of the two they would like.  Are you afraid of change and want to stick with the "old school" service?  That's fine, for now.  However at some unspecified point in the future the switch will be flipped and everyone will be on the new service whether they like it or not.

The new service has too many improvements to count out here, but one of the biggest technical achievements is that Live Hotmail was designed for quick and easy upgrading, unlike the old system where making any code update was a long and difficult process.  This means that users should be able to expect a regular flow of enhancements and new features.

Also coming up later this month is a utility that will allow Outlook to hook into the Live Hotmail service, bringing the portability of webmail and the versatility of a desktop mail client together.  This is beyond simple mail fetching, it will allow for contacts, folder and calendar synchronization.  This is a service that users were previously charged for.