Microsoft has unveiled plans to retire its Web-based e-mail service Hotmail, replacing it with the social media-integrated Outlook that is currently in preview play and readily accessible to millions of existing Microsoft e-mail patrons around the world.

In a blog announcement posted on Tuesday, Windows Live chief Chris Jones said that the service migration for the more than 350 million Hotmail users promises to be seamless and trouble-free.

Mr Jones added that Outlook users should be thrilled with the new premiums that were deployed with Microsoft's overhauled Web e-mail client, chief of them is the service's cloud storage capability, which according to CNET should mean virtually unlimited inbox space for account holders.

But the main plus, Microsoft said, is Outlook's fresh social media features that would render "your personal email comes alive with photos of your friends, recent status updates and tweets."

That would be made possible by Outlook's default connection with popular social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and yes even Google+.

The new Microsoft e-mail service would become account users' major link to the rest of the world by serving as a unified platform for social media functions, Mr Jones said.

"A lot has changed in the last eight years, and we think it's time for a fresh look at email," he further explained, underscoring at the same time that while it took a long time for Microsoft to reinvigorate its e-mail service, the long wait was worth it.

"People increasingly keep up their personal connections in social networks instead of their email address books ... and all of this has led many to hope for a better solution so you don't have to settle for today's webmail," Mr Jones said.

Part of the overhaul is Microsoft's decision to link the new Outlook to its SkyDrive and Office Web Apps, enabling the service to deliver full productivity offerings to global users minus the hassles of keeping them in a stationary work station.

Later upgrades to Outlook will also include chat facility via Skype, Microsoft said, completing the service's social media features that hopefully would stave off growth of competing services like Gmail and Yahoo Mail.

Outlook has been re-engineered to afford users of rich but simplistic online correspondence experience and every account holder, Microsoft said, will be given the power to customise the service to their likings.

The service is now live at www.outlook.com for global users to tinker with one of Microsoft's fresh marketing assaults in the run up for its much-anticipated release of Windows 8 and Office 2013 later this year.

Mr Jones reminded that Outlook's present form is a work in progress and more features should be expected in the months ahead.

Microsoft's new move immediately drew positive reactions from experts, with Mashable labelling the new service as "superior to Gmail in many ways."

The tech site, however, noted that the software giant may have erred in opting for Outlook as the name of its e-mail service reborn, pointing out that Microsoft's infamous e-mail client has somewhat sullied the company's otherwise solid reputation.

But Outlook's social integration, reviewers said, is definitely the sweetest thing that could ever happen to a stand-alone Web-based e-mail service, which minus the necessary revamps could become the net's growing list of dinosaur relics.