Microsoft to Add Google Talk to Outlook.com to Lure Gmail Users

By: Ali Raza  |   May 16th, 2013   |   Google, News, Social Media

Microsoft has completely overhauled its Live and Hotmail servicing by re-branding them to look like email service Outlook which is less popular when compared to the aforementioned services. Therefore, to lure Gmail users the software giant has now decided to integrate Google Talk into Outlook.com. For this very purpose, Microsoft is using the public API of Google, so its users could get a more personal and productive experience. The multinational corporation has made this announcement through its Outlook Blog and also laid down details of the service.

Below is a piece from the official post:

“We believe people choose to use many different services and that our role is to help them connect to the people who matter most, wherever they are. You see this in the People experience, where you connect to your contact lists from Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and more.  And you can already chat with your Facebook and Skype friends. But we heard that some of you who switched over from Gmail still want to chat with friends stuck on Gmail. Today, we’re excited to announce that you can now also chat with your Google friends. With this feature, the next time you’re reading an email from someone who uses Gmail, you can reply with a quick chat right from your Outlook.com inbox. And if you’re working together on an Office document in SkyDrive, you can send an instant message to a Google contact with just a click. We’re rolling out Google chat integration now, so look for it in your inbox over the next couple of days.

 

Bringing all your people together

 

In the past, the way you added contact data into an email account or social network was to manually enter all the info or import your contacts from another account. Then, if you wanted to send an IM to someone, you had to invite them and have them accept your invite. We respect the fact that you use many different services and have invested a great deal of time and effort in building those contact lists, and so we believe the best approach is to help you to connect to the services you already use.

 

Once your services are connected, you can see all of your contacts together in one place. And since you are often connected to a person through more than one service, we automatically match up contacts that are the same and link them together. Of course, you can also link any contacts we missed or unlink any contacts that don’t belong together.

 

The result is an uncluttered contact list full of people you really know. At a glance, you can see a quick summary of a contact with information from across all those networks.  And you’re just one click away from common tasks like sending an email, calling a number, mapping an address, or starting a chat, on any of the services you’ve connected!

 

This doesn’t just work for your contacts on Outlook.com and SkyDrive. We use the same model in the People app for Windows and the People hub for Windows Phone. Your contacts are synched with the secure, industry-standard OAuth protocol used by our partners like Google, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. This helps you stay in control of your data and who has access to it.”

 

Source: 9to5Google, OutlookBlog