While we often get hung up on how the products and services look, how they work is arguably of even greater importance. And on that note, Microsoft is sharing some details today about how it will make your Outlook.com experience even better.

“A key part of keeping performance snappy is to store your data in a region that optimizes performance, which is typically based on the proximity of datacenters to where you are located,” the Outlook team writes. “Today, we’re excited to share ways we’ve updated Outlook.com to be more intelligent about where your mailbox data is stored.”

According to the team, Outlook.com will automatically configure your account to use the datacenters that offer the best performance. Historically, this meant placing your data in a datacenter in your own region. But as Microsoft’s datacenter capacity has expanded over the years, it has found that it can do a better job by moving your data to a new location when warranted.

This happens at the time of account creation, and it happens when you move. So instead of manually creating your account in the physically nearest datacenter, Outlook.com will now determine its location automatically, based on performance. And if you move, Outlook.com will automatically move that data to the best datacenter for you, over time.

“For example, if you set up an Outlook.com account in Spain and later relocate your residence to the U.S., your account will be migrated to U.S. datacenters to optimize your access,” the Outlook team notes. “Note that we will not continuously move data back and forth between regions every time you travel abroad. The intent here is to improve performance by keeping your data in proximity to where you are primarily located.”

So that’s interesting. But seriously, when are you going to update Calendar and People in the new Outlook.com? 🙂