I just bought the 8703e from Verizon. I currently have Hotmail coming into my MS Outlook, but it shows up in a separate section under the Personal Folders section. Once I installed the desktop software, it is not pulling in the Hotmail e-mails because it is looking in the Inbox in Personal Folders, and Hotmail has its own section with its own Inbox on my Outlook.
So next I tried to setup to have Hotmail just go directly to my Blackberry by logging into the BIS. I setup the external email account and it registered. A second icon was created now, so it now looks like i have 2 places to retrieve email off my Blackberry (one is an envelope, one is an envelope with an arrow wrapped around it).
When I go to send an email from the "plain envelope icon", it makes me select which source i am sending from. The sending function appears to be working pretty well now (takes about 10-15 seconds). Unfortunately, however, it is taking over 10 minutes to receive an email that I know has already arrived at Hotmail.
All i really want is to have 1 envelope icon to send/receive email with the hotmail address showing and for the send/receive to both work at the same pace.
The only thing I can think of right now for you is to buy the premium option for yout Hotmail account, and setup mail forwarding to have your Hotmail messages redirected to your blackberry address...
8703e and Hotmail
