Microsoft begins revamped Hotmail rollout

Microsoft has begun rolling out a number of new features for its Windows Live Hotmail service, which it previewed last month.

The new features include increased attachment size limits, and the ability to create and distribute photo albums from the email inbox.

Mike Schackwitz, program manager at the Windows Live Hotmail team, explained in a blog post that the increased attachment size to 10GB is enabled through the use of a SkyDrive account.

Schackwitz said some users would not get the new features immediately because of the way email accounts are provided; specifically the fact that they are grouped into 'clusters'.

These, he explained, will be updated incrementally as the firm irons out any unexpected problems.

"We have hundreds of clusters. We start by upgrading a single cluster, wait to make sure that it's running smoothly and that we didn't miss anything during testing, and then we continue on to the next cluster," he said.

"If we find a bug, we'll fix it before continuing further, and give that fix to everybody who has been upgraded so far."

Schackwitz said that this would help Microsoft release high quality code, and minimise downtime.

Integration with Office Web Apps, announced earlier this month, will roll out more slowly, beginning in the UK, Ireland, Canada and the US and following in other locations later.