A lucky few had early 'high-speed' Internet service over ISDN connections, but many companies hadn't even connected their corporate email systems to the Internet yet. Almost all personal Internet access was over dial-up services such as AOL, MSN, CompuServe, and EarthLink.

In 1996, the Web was still gaining traction. 'He gave me and my team the mission of basically finding or creating a system for free Web-based email for the whole world that Microsoft would offer,' DeMello said. In an interview with Ars, DeMello-who would go on to be director of Windows security and product manager for Exchange before leaving Microsoft in 2006-recounted how, right after he was hired in October of 1996 to manage MSN, he was summoned to Redmond for a meeting with Bill Gates. And the email service would be Microsoft's first step toward what is now the Azure cloud.įormer Microsoft executive Marco DeMello, now CEO of mobile security firm PSafe Technology, was handed the job of managing the integration of Hotmail as the lead program manager for MSN-Microsoft's own answer to America Online. Along the way, Hotmail drove changes in Windows itself (particularly in what would become Windows Server) that would lay the groundwork for the operating system to make its push into the data center. Many, many horrendous email signatures were spawned.īut over the years that followed, Hotmail would set the course for all the Web-based email offerings that followed, launching the era of mass-consumer free email services. Originally launched in 1996 by Jack Smith and Sabeer Bhatia as 'HoTMaiL' (referencing HTML, the language of the World Wide Web), Hotmail was initially folded into Microsoft's MSN online service. With the buy-the largest all-cash Internet startup purchase of its day-Microsoft plunged into the nascent world of Web-based email. Twenty years ago this week, on December 29, 1997, Bill Gates bought Microsoft a $450 million late Christmas present: a Sunnyvale-based outfit called Hotmail.

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