Hands-On With Outlook.com, Microsoft's Snazzy New Challenge to Gmail: Microsoft has openly admitted that Hotmail isn't so hot, and that webmail needs a major makeover. But now the company is leap-frogging over its Hotmail property via an all-new webmail client, dubbed Outlook.com. With a fresh coat of Metro and a bunch of innovative features, Outlook.com could actually take on Google's Gmail giant.