Outlook.com is a Microsoft webmail service: a translation of the Outlook desktop application to a web service using the Metro design language, it is scheduled to replace Microsoft's Hotmail service and Outlook Web Access.
Outlook.com is a Microsoft webmail service. It descends from the Outlook desktop application that was a component of the Microsoft Office suite. As part of Microsoft's move towards transitioning the Office suite into a cloud-based software-as-a-service offering, other parts of the Office suite became available online under the Office 365 branding. Outlook.com is a further step in that direction, and also is scheduled to obsolete Microsoft's Hotmail and to bring Hotmail users into the Office ecosystem. It also is based on Microsoft's "Metro" design language, rolling out in the same time-frame as Windows 8, the flagship Metro implementation.
