According to the Windows Team Blog, Microsoft has begun rolling out its much anticipated Wave 4 revision of its popular Hotmail cloud-based webmail service. Slowly but surely, users will begin seeing the new features. The upgrade will take place over the course summer. There is no word as to when it will be complete. As Neowin previously explained in much detail, the new version of Hotmail is set rival Gmail in many ways.
Until now, Hotmail"s feature set hasn"t been much to write home about. Hotmail Wave 4 will include the following enhancements:
- Better "gray mail" filtering
- Send files via SkyDrive (new 10 GB attachment limit)
- Integrated Office Web Apps
- Better mobile experience, including Push
- Conversation view (sort of like Gmail)
- Sweep feature
- Active Views
- Security improvements
If the new features aren"t showing up in your Hotmail yet, be patient. Microsoft is upgrading its servers one cluster at a time. Assuming things run smoothly with the initial upgrades, they will continue pushing out the features to other clusters. The process is not being done on a per user basis. For a quick look at what Hotmail Wave 4 has to offer, check out the video below or checkout our Hotmail review.