Microsoft Stops Development Of Outlook Express

[Bob Hubbard]

Microsoft Stops Development Of Outlook Express

Posted by simoniker on Wednesday August 13, @10:10PM
from the looking-out-on-code-freeze dept.
Jman314 writes "According to a ZDNet story, Microsoft will cease development of their Outlook Express email client. "The technology doesn't go away, but no new work is being done. It is consumer email in an early iteration, and our investment in the consumer space is now focused around Hotmail and MSN. That's where we're putting the emphasis in terms of new investment and new development work." says Dan Leach, lead product manager for Microsoft's information worker product management group. Microsoft's alternatives include, not surprisingly, the full version of Outlook."

The ZDNet story:

Microsoft abandons Outlook Express


Angus Kidman
ZDNet Australia
August 13, 2003, 12:20 BST


Tell us your opinion

Microsoft will not do any more development work on the world's most popular email client


It might be the world's most widely distributed email client, but Microsoft has confirmed that it has no intention of further developing Outlook Express.



"[Outlook Express] just sits where it is," said Dan Leach, lead product manager for Microsoft's information worker product management group. "The technology doesn't go away, but no new work is being done. It is consumer email in an early iteration, and our investment in the consumer space is now focused around Hotmail and MSN. That's where we're putting the emphasis in terms of new investment and new development work."

While Outlook Express has always been most popular with individual consumers, many business users have also utilised it, in part because it is part of its default Windows install. Microsoft executives are hoping those users will now switch to the full-blown Outlook client (and pay for an Office licence in the process).

"IMAP is just not a very rich protocol," Steve Conn, Exchange Server product manager, told ZDNet Australia during the company's Tech Ed conference. "The great majority of people used Outlook Express because they weren't on a LAN environment, and Outlook was just too fat for them."

The currently-in-beta Outlook 2003 client has much lower bandwidth requirements, he said. In May, Microsoft revealed that it was no longer planning to release standalone versions of Internet Explorer, which includes the Outlook Express functionality. Future releases will only be made available as part of the Windows platform.

So..... now what?

Me, I switched to Eudora a while ago.

 

[arnisador]

Hurray!

 

[Cthulhu]

Since I never used Outlook or Outlook Express, this effects me not at all

Cthulhu

 

[arnisador]

They force me to use it to sync my PDA, the scum.

 

[satans.barber]

Typical Microsoft, if it's so broken they can't fix it then they just abandon it!

It won't win them any favours, since it's probably the most popular e-mail client on the planet (since most people are too daft to set up something else, they just use what came with their computer!).

I use PC-Pine for mail, mainly because it plays nicely with my IMAP server, but I was a Eudora user before that, and have tried Mozilla Mail the odd time as well. Anything but OE!

Ian.

 

[Elfan]

Woohoo! No more Outlook Express, no more IE (well standalone), whats next, no more windows? :-D

Seriosuly though, its probably because they would prefer to persue power/market share/profites from hotmail/msn which they have more control over.