Outlook.com hits 1m signups just hours after launch

Wow. Turns out people are really excited by Outlook.com. One-million people have already turned on the product that will ultimately kill hotmail just hours after its launch.

The news comes via a tweet from the product’s official account and in the wake of a media onslaught that may well have stoked curiosity in the new email service:

One million people have signed up for a new, modern email experience at Outlook.com. Thanks! #outlookpreview twitter.com/Outlook/status…

— Outlook.com (@Outlook) July 31, 2012

The tweet also came with a graph showing how quickly it hit that one-million user mark.

You’ve got to wonder though how many of those one-million users were people racing to grab their preferred user names, just for the bragging rights.

Outlook comes bundled with social network integration and 7GB of free cloud storage as well as the ability to block the spammy newsletters we all tend to accumulate.

That sounds exciting, but Outlook will have to do a hell of lot if it wants to lure people away from Gmail.

Microsoft reckons Outlook should work across a range of devices including smartphones, tablets, and the new Outlook 2013 Preview. In the coming months Hotmail users will be prompted to switch to the new service.