For over 10 years, users of Microsoft’s free email service Outlook.com (better known as Hotmail) have been able to use their own personal or business domains with the service. Replacing yourname@outlook.com with yourname@yourbusiness.co.uk.

Now though, that has changed. With Microsoft announcing the end of support for custom domains.

Outlook for all

Although Microsoft are not removing custom domains from users who already have them, they are stopping new customers from taking personal / business domains and preventing existing ones from adding extra accounts. Leaving users with no option but to use outlook.com email addresses.

These changes mean Outlook.com is no longer viable for businesses looking for professional, cloud-hosted email, and highlight the dangers of relying on free services which may change their terms of usage at any time.

Time to change

Outlook.com customers are encouraged to look for alternative providers, including our own Microsoft Exchange based email services. We provide a range of Microsoft Exchange 2013 services to suit all budgets including £1 for IMAP accessfull Exchange accounts with ActiveSync, and Outlook licences, and Microsoft Office 365 services. All our email services benefit from access to OWA 2013, which provides a similar interface to Outlook.com and Outlook 2013 on Windows.