Then consensus after days of trawling the web is that Outlook 2011 cannot synch with Outlook.com/Hotmail via Exchange or IMAP and will only connect via POP. But in the Outlook.com help pages, specifically here:

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows/outlook/outlook-connector

It states "You can manage your Outlook.com email, calendars, and contacts using Office Outlook. Here’s how to set it up"

"To add Outlook.com to Outlook for Mac 2011, follow these steps:

1. On the ribbon, tap or click File.
2. Tap or click Add Account.
3. Enter your name, Outlook.com email address. and password, and then click Next.
4. Outlook for Mac does the rest. When it’s done, click Finish."

Of course, there is no Account option from the File menu but there is from the Tools menu.

After many attempts (my Outlook.com email does not end in @outlook.com) I cannot get the account to set-up. It remains with a yellow dot. I tried a test @outlook.com address and that communicated with the outook.com and hotmail.com servers but also did not connect successfully.

I join everyone else who is suffering from this aspect of the sales drive to get us onto Office 365 (which doesn't apply to Windows users where I've got Outlook 29010 working perfectly!

But I'm even more annoyed that instructions are posted that won't work and have wasted days of my time!