Hopefully this brings you some closure
Are Hotmail and Outlook the same?
Do you remember using Microsoft's Hotmail email service? Over the years, Microsoft has offered a variety of cloud email services that have changed names several times.
These name changes become even more confusing when you consider Microsoft's transition from Microsoft Hotmail to Live Mail and eventually to the Outlook web app.
In 1996, when web-based email services were just becoming popular, Sabeer Bhatia and Jack Smith launched the Hotmail web service. The only other major email service at the time was America Online (AOL).
