Take That, Gmail: Outlook.com Lets You Chat With Your Google Contacts

Outlook.com now lets you chat with your Google contacts, alongside Facebook and Skype contacts. Image: Microsoft

Microsoft is doing everything it can to get you to embrace its new Outlook.com webmail service. It already killed Hotmail and ported its hundreds of millions of users over. Now it’s wooing Gmail devotees by integrating Google Talk contacts into Outlook.com’s messenger service.

Starting today, you’ll be able chat with your Google Talk contacts within the web portal, directly from your Outlook.com inbox, SkyDrive app, or calendar. Your Google contacts will join the same messenger list that features Facebook friends and Skype contacts. Dharmesh Mehta, senior director of Outlook.com, said his team is focused on making Outlook.com as productive as possible and ensuring it’s a personalized experience. That’s where your Google contacts fit in.

“The notion here is it’s very much about choice,” he said. “You may want to chat with your Facebook friends, Google friends, or Skype friends — you can decide. It’s just built in.”

Unlike Google’s Gmail, Outlook.com lets you chat across multiple services and build your contacts list from various social channels, including Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. Microsoft previously announced the ability to easily import contacts from Gmail as well. Microsoft would not provide specific numbers about how many people have moved from Gmail to Outlook.com, but it has said about one-third of its initial 60 million preview users came from Gmail. In that time, Mehta says, by far the top request from former Gmail users was the ability to chat with their Google contacts.

That has been a major pain point for many Gmail users. Outlook.com is clean and intuitive, but as I noted last year, “if you’re an active Google Talk user, it might not make sense to leave your chat contacts behind.” Today’s news addresses this issue, making Outlook.com all the more appealing to Gmailers.

Microsoft’s new webmail service already has 400 million users, thanks to a fast-growing preview phase and the migration of Hotmail users to Outlook.com. But with the launch of Google Talk integration in Outlook.com, Microsoft can now use Google’s own weapons to help draw more Gmail users.