4 Out Of 5 Gmail Users Want to Switch To Outlook…Apparently

I recently read an article on Microsoft Outlook Blog whereby Microsoft are stating that 4 out of 5 Gmail users wanted to move over to the new Outlook.com email service that replaced Hotmail.

According to the article there are currently 25 million active Outlook users and counting. Personally I think the vast majority of these users aren’t “active users” but rather users like me that have registered for an Outlook account just to see what it’s like and to have a Microsoft account just in case they ever need one. The post goes on to say…

We found that about a third of Outlook.com users are active Gmail users trying Outlook.com for the first time.  We wanted to learn more, so we hired a research firm to recruit hundreds of Gmail users – people that use Gmail as their primary email service – and asked them to try Outlook.com.  We asked the Gmail users to sign-up for Outlook.com addresses, forward email from Gmail to Outlook.com, and try Outlook.com’s best features.  The Gmail users loved it.

The very first line in this quote “we found that about a third of Outlook.com users are active Gmail users trying Outlook.com for the first time” says to me that at the very least over 8 million of the reported 25 million users of the new Outlook users are the ones like myself that I explained above. The new features that the Gmail users “loved” were keyboard shortcuts, quick access to search engines, tab to send (hitting the tab button to cycle to the send button) & conversation threading. All of these “new features” have been present in Gmail in some cases for years now – no wonder the Gmail users “loved” them.

The article also goes on to say that Outlook’s new spam protection out performs Gmails. In my experience this is completely incorrect. I use Gmail (well Google Apps actually) on a daily basis for all of my email. I do receive spam but all unwanted mail goes straight to my spam folder. I’ve never used my Outlook address except to reserve the address and to write about it. I logged in today to find that I have 3 spam emails waiting for me in the inbox. I’d hate to see what it looked like if I was actually using the email address!

It isn’t all bad and I think it’s really important at this point to mention something positive about Outlook. The new web interface is really clean and does look great. At the moment there aren’t many customisation options but it does look really cool and modern.

Many may think that this post is more of a rant than an unbiased editorial, and in some ways it probably is. However, I wanted to document my own personal findings so that readers can make an informed decision on which email service to go with. Personally I find Outlook, and previously Hotmail to be horrendous. Gmail is an excellent service but if you’re unsure then the best thing you can do is try both and decide for yourself, both Gmail & Outlook aren’t for everyone.

Do you prefer Gmail, Outlook or something else? Why not tell us in the comments section below or come and discuss the subject further in our forums.