Hotmail POP3 access on the way: Omar Shahine explains

Kip Kniskern — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 04:12:00 GMT

We spent the day today (Jan 13) on campus, talking to some of the people who have helped to bring you Wave 3. In quite a coincidence, one of them was Omar Shahine, who we spoke to last fall when POP3 access was announced. We’ll bring you more from Omar coming up, but we wanted to get this bit out on POP3 now while the news is fresh. Funnily enough, Omar doesn’t actually work on POP, although he has been working on Hotmail, and more recently on some of the social networking aspects of Windows Live, specifically People and Profiles. We just happened to catch him, twice, right when there were POP announcements.

Last night we reported that users in the Netherlands were accessing their Hotmail via POP3 (as Omar explains in the video, POP is a kind of lowest common denominator for email retrieval. It isn’t nearly as rich an experience as DeltaSync, which is what Windows Live Mail and Outlook use, but it does allow just about any email client – including most notably the iPhone – to access Hotmail), and we’ve since seen reports of access in the UK and in Australia. If you’re waiting for POP access, perhaps for your iPhone, you shouldn’t have to wait long. And if you are able to access POP for the first time in your region, let us know in the comments.

(Please visit the site to view this media)

(Our friend Arnout Hemel posted on Hotmail access in the Netherlands on the LiveLog blog today – it’s in Dutch but you can play with Windows Live Translator)

In the next few days, we’ll be posting the rest of our chat with Omar and our other interviews, just as soon as we can get the videos processed and posted. Thanks to everyone for a fun day!

POP3 on Hotmail Explained: we talk to Omar Shahine

Kip Kniskern — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 10:14:00 GMT

POP3, a protocol for getting email from a server to a client, has been around a long time, but it hasn't been generally available for Hotmail users. With the advent of so many different devices (think iPhone), however, a POP3 story is in the process of being added so that users of Hotmail will be able to access their mail through POP3.

Omar Shahine, a Lead Program Manager for Hotmail, announced this somewhat esoteric advance recently on the Windows Live Hotmail blog, and when I was in Mountain View for Searchification, I was able to take a few minutes and talk to Omar about POP3.

With the help of Waggener Edstrom, we found the noisiest room in all of Mountain View (I think we were actually inside the air conditioning system) - just kidding, Jim!, and talked to Omar about Hotmail and POP.

Chapter 1 - Omar introduces himself
Chapter 2 - Why doesn't Hotmail offer POP currently, and why is it needed?
Chapter 3 - Why DeltaSync is desirable
Chapter 4 - Hotmail has always had a POP interface
Chapter 5 - We want to give POP to everybody
Chapter 6 - POP isn't a fantastic user experience
Chapter 7 - iPhone
Chapter 8 - IMAP
Chapter 9 - MSN Premium

(if you don't have Silverlight, you can get the .mp3 here):

LiveSide with Omar Shahine POP.mp3

LiveSide - Interview Blog : POP3

Hotmail POP3 access on the way: Omar Shahine explains

POP3 on Hotmail Explained: we talk to Omar Shahine