Microsoft Stops Development Of Outlook Express
The ZDNet story:
So..... now what?
Me, I switched to Eudora a while ago.
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.