Why does my Hotmail open in Outlook?

Since launching back in 1996, Hotmail's gone through quite a few changes, and the most recent of those has been changing to Outlook.com. So now when you open Hotmail, you're actually signing in to Outlook.

When the company first started out, it was basically independent, but a year later, it was bought by Microsoft, who have owned it ever since. They rebranded it as MSN Hotmail, before eventually changing it to Windows Live Hotmail.

In trying to stay competitive, though, they decided to undergo another big change, rebranding the serve as Outlook.com last year. Your e-mail address stayed the same, but it meant that you could now use all of Microsoft's services in one place.

It lets you send e-mails, view your calendar, and chat on Skype all in the same place! Very handy when you're trying to multitask.

Here's a video that was released around the time Hotmail was rebranded: