What email service was acquired by Microsoft in 1997?

What email service was acquired by Microsoft in 1997? The answer is Hotmail. Founded by Sabeer Bhatia and Jack Smith, Hotmail launched commercially on July 4, 1996, as one of the first widely popular free webmail services.

Microsoft acquired Hotmail in December 1997 and folded it into the MSN group, initially branding it MSN Hotmail. Reports put the deal's value at roughly $400 million to $500 million. By December 1997, Hotmail had more than 8.5 million subscribers.

The service's name was styled “HoTMaiL” to highlight the letters in HTML, the markup language used to build web pages. It later became Windows Live Hotmail before Microsoft replaced the Hotmail brand with Outlook.com in 2013. Existing @hotmail.com addresses remain usable through Microsoft's email system.

A common mix-up is confusing Hotmail with Outlook. Outlook is the modern successor and brand; Hotmail is the service Microsoft actually acquired in 1997.