MS Outlook

We have already talked about the competition between Email and corporate portals/social tools for the right to be the primary workplace. Initially, this role was fully owned by Email. Then appeared the web-based collaboration systems and social tools that were intended to replace the "outdated" Email. And it seemed that they would kill Email soon. But some clever people invented social Email plug-ins (Xobni, Rapportive, Harmon.ie, Gist, Etacts), that gave the second life to Email-clients. They added social and file-storage functions to the Email. And they're not going to stop. Today Xobni has opened the Xobni Gadget Store - the marketplace for apps, that can be embedded to MS Outlook and turn it into the universal interface to all business systems.

Email was the first collaboration tool in the Intarnet. Then intranet portals emerged, and they wanted to kill Email because of its lacks: instead of sending back and forth messages and documents, they are placed on a portal web-page (for example, in the news, on the forum or file cabinet). But due to the fact that people got used to e-mail and email was also used for external communications - intranet portals failed to replace the Email as a primary workspace. Moreover, recently Email launched the counterattack. And it happened because the major enterprise Email-solutions (GMail, Outlook, Lotus Notes) have become the platforms that allow third-party developers to add new functionality.

Microsoft has updated its social Outlook plug-in - Outlook Social Connector, which can now can fetch the contact's data from Facebook and Windows Live Messenger (formerly the plug-in by default only supported LinkedIn, MySpace and Sharepoint). The Outlook Social Connector is intended to provide users with the actual information about a contact to better understand his mood and interests, which is very important when communicating with customers. The plug-in can display only publicly-available information from the profiles in social networks. Meanwhile it can only receive data but doesn't allow to post messages or statuses to the social networks. Microsoft says that soon the plug-in will be integrated with some local social networks.

Socialwok (known as the "social layer for Google Apps") like the online organizer Producteev, shows us the new meaning of "cross-platform" definition. Realizing that users most of time spend in email clients (such as Outlook and GMail), Socialwok simply decided to get inside these email clients. Socialwok was one of the first services to use the new GMail API and has created the gadget that can be expanded on the entire GMail workspace (see screenshot) and allows to post messages to microblogs, share Google Docs files, images, Youtube videos and events from Google Calendar, search for Google Docs, post to Twitter or Facebook right from your GMail interface.

The world's most popular enterprise Email client, MS Outlook, is already equipped with various Enterprise 2.0 tools. Outlook is already integrated with social networks (Xobni and Outlook Social Connector), Google Apps, Google Docs (Harmony), Remember the Milk, etc. Now, when this place is crowded, the developers switched their attention to the second most popular enterprise Email client - Lotus Notes. Thus, the new plug-in + service Gist makes the same for Lotus Notes as Xobni for Outlook - allows you to see the social profiles of those with whom you communicate. Gist pulls the latest information about a person from Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, as well as recent news about his company from blogs and news sites. In addition, the plug-in displays in suitable form all correspondence with selected contact and files sent to/from him. It should be noted that Gist also works with Outlook, GMail, iPhone and may also be accessed as a web service.

Recently, Google released the next anti-microsoft tool - Google Apps Migration for Microsoft Exchange, the plugin which allows you to easily move mail, calendars and contacts from Exchange to Google Apps. Last year they released the utility that syncs Outlook with Google Apps, but now you can import data directly from the Exchange server. Previously, Microsoft just ignored such events, or commented that Google Apps - is just a toy that no serious company will use. But Google's constant pressure is making them nervous. Microsoft recently launched the channel on Youtube, which contains videos explaining why MS Office products are better than Google's. For example, here's the video Exchange vs GMail:

Harmony, the new plug-in for MS Outlook by Mainsoft gave us a lot of positive emotions, which we want to share. First, is its video presentation, which is really cool. Secondly, Harmony - is really useful tool that allows to access and collaborate with documents stored in Google Docs or MS Sharepoint, without leaving MS Outlook. In particular, you can open and edit office documents directly in Outlook, search in docs content and share documents with co-workers instead of sending them back and forth. And it's not necessary that your co-workers have this plug-in installed and have Google Docs account - they just click the link in the email and the document will be shared to them automatically (for viewing or editing).

Recently, we often see the software vendors integrating their enterprise software with public social networks. And Microsoft also wants to participate in this trend. Last year they released the Social Networking Accelerator for MS Dynamics CRM, which allows you to monitor the social networks for mentioning specific themes. And this year, along with Office 2010, they will release the social plugin Outlook Social Connector, which lets you see the social profile of the person who sent you email. Initial Microsoft's partner in this project is the business social network LinkedIn. If a person who has a LinkedIn public profile sent you email, you will be provided with the current information from his profile, including his connections and recent activities.

Microsoft officially released the new version of its enterprise email server Exchange Server 2010. It's desktop client Outlook 2010 will appear only next year together with other Office 2010 applications. What is the most interesting about Exchange 2010? First, thanks to Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7 (details here), and some new features in the new version, Exchange 2010 is now completely adopted for the cloud deployment. Of course, Hosted Exchange 2007 has been already provided for some years, but the latest version is much more secure, reliable and suitable for administration, when installed on the remote server (or in data-center).

Today Microsoft has officially announced the new version of its Email collaboration solution Exchange Server 2007. The main concept of the new Exchange version is unified messaging. It means that employees can work with e-mail, voice mail and faxes in a single interface. And thanks to the integration with MS Office Communications Server, text-to-speech and voice recognition technologies now you can dial to your mailbox and listen to the new email-messages. But these features are available only in more expensive edition Exchange Enterprise. In addition, the new Exchange version includes antivirus and antispam protection, tools for backup and data replication (that significantly increase the mailbox size), the new feature Outlook Anywhere, that lets you connect Outlook to the Exchange server via the Internet. Besides, Exchange 2007 only runs on 64-bit architecture .

IBM has released the next version of its e-mail and collaboration solution Lotus Notes / Domino 7. Among the new features the closer integration with Lotus Sametime and MS Office, RSS and iCal support, improved email group operations, e-mail threaded view, S/MIME support (all this works in Lotus Notes and in the Domino Web Access). In addition, Domino server now supports DB2 database. But the most interesting - is Domino Access for Microsoft Outlook - the "virtual Outlook", which allows you to migrate data from MS Exchange to Lotus Domino and access e-mail and other tools via the Web interface or Lotus Notes. According to the recent IDC report IBM Notes / Domino and Microsoft Exchange / Office virtually splited the collaboration market in half, but Microsoft is leading with 51,2% against 40,1%.

Microsoft has released the new version of its e-mail server Exchange Server 2003. Now, this system can be really called "e-mail server", because Microsoft has decided to divide some of its functions between other products. The built-in Exchange messenger has migrated to Microsoft Office Live Communications Server, and the web-conferencing server - to Live Meeting. In addition, Microsoft now recommends to share files not with Exchange, but on the intranet portal Sharepoint (although the Exchange public folders are still included). Thus, Exchange Server will be used just to manage e-mail, contacts, calendars and tasks. From the other hand Exchange Server 2003 got the new functions from the mobile server Microsoft Mobile Information Server and using a mobile the web client Outlook Mobile Access and server-side Exchange ActiveSync (to sync mobile email-client with server) allows users to work with e-mail, calendars and tasks on their mobile devices.

Microsoft has introduced a free software for companies that use Lotus Domino as their e-mail server, which enables users to work with their email in Outlook rather than in Lotus Notes. Microsoft Outlook 2002 Connector is compatible with the latest version of Lotus Domino and allows you to access your mail, contacts and calendars. Thus, Microsoft is taking customers away from IBM, first switching them to Outlook, and then offering to switch from Lotus Domino to Exchange .

The new version of Microsoft's mail server Exchange Server 5.0 includes the Web interface Exchange Web Access, which enables users to access information in the Exchange via Internet browser. However, to get this opportunity you'll have to pay for a client license, even if you do not have a mailbox on the server. In addition to the new web client, Exchange Server now has a new desktop client - MS Outlook 97, which is a part of MS Office 97 and replaces the calendaring app Schedule+ and e-mail client Exchange Client. In addition, the new Exchange features support of messaging protocols SMTP and POP3, as well as directory access protocol LDAP. The standard version of Exchange Server is priced at $ 999 for the server license.