The Mail Call blog has finally confirmed the conclusion of Windows Live Hotmail's POP3 rollout: "POP3 technology has now rolled out to Hotmail customers WORLDWIDE!" Hotmail has a few more features to still release soon, including Messenger integration, but for now, here are the details you need to know for POP3:

POP server: pop3.live.com

POP SSL required? Yes

User name: Your Windows Live ID, for example yourname@hotmail.com

Password: The password you usually use to sign in to Hotmail or Windows Live

SMTP server: smtp.live.com

Authentication required? Yes (this matches your POP username and password)

TLS/SSL required? Yes

In January, the feature trickled out to the UK, Canada, Australia, France, Japan, Spain, Germany, Italy, as well as the Netherlands, and then arrived in the US and Brazil in February.

Hotmail previously only offered DeltaSync (the protocol that Outlook, Windows Live Mail, and Windows Live for Windows Mobile use). Many of you already know that DeltaSync is more robust and might be wondering why Microsoft is bothering with POP3. Well, the latter is much more commonly used and accepted (especially on mobile devices), so if your e-mail client doesn't support DeltaSync, chances are it will be able to work with POP3. For those wondering, there are currently no plans for Hotmail supporting the IMAP protocol.