SuperSite Blog : Email

Microsoft Opens Up the PST Format

pthurrott — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 16:14:10 GMT

From Microsoft:

As more and more information is stored and shared in digital formats, the ability for people to reuse their data across various applications and platforms has become increasing important. As part of an ongoing effort to enable this kind of data portability, Microsoft is announcing that it will be releasing documentation for the .pst file format – the format in which data is stored in Microsoft Outlook Personal Folders.

Providing access to the documentation will facilitate interoperability, enabling customers and vendors to access their data in .pst files across a variety of platforms. This is important to organizations that need exchange key corporate data in and out of Outlook, upload to the cloud, or comply with corporate governance policies.

When it is complete, the documentation will be released under our Open Specification Promise, which will allow anyone to implement the .pst file format on any platform and in any tool, without concerns about patents, and without the need to contact Microsoft in any way.

Paul Lorimer, the Group Manager of Microsoft Office Interoperability has posted additional details on the Interoperability @ Microsoft blog.

The New Efficiency

pthurrott — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 21:06:22 GMT

Microsoft today officially introduced its marketing phrase for the Windows 7 - Windows Server 2008 R2 - Exchange Server 2010 "trifecta" launch which is now underway. It's called "The New Efficiency," and while it's as groan-worthy as any other Microsoft marketing slogan ("Do more with less," for example), there's a certain ring to this one. (Confusingly, Microsoft is also using the phrase, "The New Normal" to describe this set of products.) Here's an executive email from Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer that outlines where Microsoft is heading with this.

In all the talk about the economy, one term that comes up more and more frequently is something called "the new normal." I like this phrase because it speaks to the fact that economic reality has undergone a fundamental shift over the course of the past 12 months.

So what is the nature of this shift? After years of economic expansion fueled by unrealistic rates of consumption and unsustainable levels of private debt, the global economy has reset at a lower baseline level of activity. Today, people borrow less, save more, and spend with much greater caution.

This is the new normal and it will be with us for some time to come. The issue now is how to respond.

I believe the new normal requires a new kind of efficiency built on technology innovations that enable businesses and organizations to simultaneously drive cost savings, improve productivity, and speed innovation.

I want to share my thoughts with you about how information technology can enable organizations to operate more efficiently, more effectively, and more strategically as they respond to the new normal by moving toward the new efficiency.

The New Efficiency: With Less, Do More

In the new normal, one thing is clear: cutting costs is extremely important. But cost cutting by itself is not a long-term winning strategy. To build a sustainable competitive advantage, companies must ultimately do two things — increase productivity and find ways to deliver new value to customers.

The issue, then, is how can organizations take costs out of their operations, increase productivity, and expand their capacity for innovation all at the same time?

For years, we’ve talked about how information technology enables companies to do more with less. But during this economic reset, IT provides business leaders with the answer to a slightly different question: Can my company with less, do more?

Other trends give this question even greater urgency. Workforces are more distributed and employees are more mobile. Government regulations are increasing and compliance requirements are mounting. Data security is more important to preserve and more difficult to maintain.

At the same time, companies struggle with legacy technology systems built on incompatible and disconnected applications that limit access to information and impede collaboration. The complexity of these systems forces IT departments to focus too much of their time and too many of their resources on providing basic services and protecting security.

Today, a new generation of business solutions is transforming IT into a strategic asset that makes it possible to cut costs without crippling customer service or constraining workforce creativity and effectiveness. A new generation of business solutions is eliminating the barriers between systems and applications, and automating routines tasks so IT professionals can focus on high-value work that is aligned to strategic priorities. These technologies can help organizations reduce risk, improve security, and drive down support costs.

This is IT how achieves the new efficiency with less.

At the same time, these technologies streamline access to information no matter where it is stored and enable people to work together securely no matter where they are located. This new generation of business solutions also provides improved mobile computing capabilities so people who work in a branch office, at home, or on the road can be as productive as employees who work at corporate headquarters.

Most important, a new wave of IT technologies offers advanced tools that enable employees to transform insights into innovations that address unmet market opportunities and meet unfulfilled customer needs.

This powerful combination of greater productivity and improved capacity for innovation is how IT enables businesses to do more.

Software Solutions for the New Efficiency

This year, Microsoft is introducing a wave of new software created specifically to enable businesses to tackle their most pressing challenges and strengthen their ability to deliver innovation to the marketplace.

It starts with Windows 7, the newest version of our flagship PC operating system. Windows 7 simplifies tasks and lets people get more done in less time with fewer clicks. Ready to deploy now, it enhances corporate data protection and security, and increases control to improve compliance and reduce risk. Part of our Windows Optimized Desktop solution that includes Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack, Windows 7 streamlines management of PC environments, making it easier to reduce costs, improve performance, and enable end users to work anywhere.

These and other enhancements are the result of close collaboration with millions of customers and thousands of IT professionals who participated in testing programs and provided suggestions about the capabilities and improvements they wanted to see. Thanks in large part to their help, Windows 7 is the best PC operating system we have ever built.

We’ve also just released a new version of our server operating system. Windows Server 2008 R2 is designed to increase the reliability and flexibility of server infrastructures. It provides a productive server platform that offers cost-effective virtualization and business continuity, great power saving capabilities, and a superior experience for end users.

Later this year, we will also launch Exchange Server 2010. The cornerstone of Microsoft’s unified communications technologies, Exchange Server 2010 provides a great email and inbox experience that extends from the PC to the phone to the browser and it helps companies archive and protect information efficiently. It also enables companies to reduce costs by delivering a built-in voice mail solution and providing low-cost storage options.

Achieving the Benefits of the New Efficiency Today

Organizations around the globe are already deploying these solutions and reaping the benefits.

At Intel, for example, Windows 7 is providing improved performance, greater application responsiveness, and a better platform for mobile workers. Ford is taking advantage of Exchange 2010 and Windows 7 to streamline communications, improve decision making, and boost productivity. Continental Airlines expects to save more than $1.5 million annually in hardware, software, and operational costs through the server virtualization capabilities of Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V technology.

At Convergent Computing, an information technology consulting firm based in California, Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7 will eliminate the $40,000 in annual spending that was needed to maintain a virtual private network for the company’s 55 employees. In addition, employees can now access the company’s corporate network instantly and download files 30 to 40 percent faster than before.

Another example is Baker Tilly, a London financial services firm with more than 2,000 employees and a network of partners in 110 countries. One of the first businesses to deploy Windows 7 on a company-wide basis, Baker Tilly expects to save about $160 per PC by reducing deployment, management, and energy costs. And because Windows 7 improves productivity, it offers the potential to increase billable time for mobile workers at a rate of nearly $600 per PC. This could return the equivalent of one-half of one percent of the company’s current gross annual revenue to the bottom line.

Businesses aren’t alone in their struggle to respond to the new normal. Governments must figure out how to deliver more services on budgets that are sharply constrained by falling revenue. As part of its response, the city of Miami deployed Windows 7 and expects that it will save nearly $400,000 a year in reduced security, management, and energy costs.

Ideal Conditions for an Era of Innovation and Growth

Despite the challenges posed by the global economic reset, I’m optimistic about the long-term opportunities that lie ahead.

I’m optimistic because there are encouraging signs that growth may resume in many parts of the world during the course of the next year.

More than that, I’m optimistic because I believe we are entering a period of technology-driven transformation that will see a surge in productivity and a flowering of innovation.

The new efficiency will not only help companies respond to today’s economic reality, it will lay the foundation for systems and solutions that connect people to information, applications, and to other people in new ways. The result will be a wave of innovative products and services that will jumpstart economic growth as companies deliver breakthroughs that solve old problems and serve as the catalyst for new businesses and even new industries.

This too will be the new normal — economic growth driven not by debt and consumption, but by rising productivity and new ideas that provide real value to people throughout their lives. Information technology will play an important role. I look forward to seeing the progress that results.

Steve

Not So Fast

pthurrott — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 15:14:59 GMT

Like most of you, I'm sure, I understand the hamster-wheel nature of the business we're in and how the relentless march of technology brings with it both good and bad. I wrestle with this on a regular basis, and while I at least can claim not to be a gadget-of-the-moment-shilling-fool like some others, I can certainly be part of the problem when it comes to the technology-is-everything mentality. I try, but sometimes it's easy to forget that technology is a tool, or a means to an end, and not the end itself. Anyone who has been consumed by the need to always have the latest and greatest, indeed anyone who spends time on sites like this, owes it to themselves to read this Wall Street Journal commentary, which is excerpted from an upcoming book, The Tyranny of E-Mail, I'm quite interested in reading. All we can do is try...

Not So Fast by John Freeman

Sending and receiving at breakneck speed can make life queasy; a manifesto for slow communication

The boundlessness of the Internet always runs into the hard fact of our animal nature, our physical limits, the dimensions of our cognitive present, the overheated capacity of our minds. "My friend has just had his PC wired for broadband," writes the poet Don Paterson. "I meet him in the café; he looks terrible—his face puffy and pale, his eyes bloodshot. . . . He tells me he is now detained, night and day, in downloading every album he ever owned, lost, desired, or was casually intrigued by; he has now stopped even listening to them, and spends his time sleeplessly monitoring a progress bar. . . . He says it's like all my birthdays have come at once, by which I can see he means, precisely, that he feels he is going to die."

We will die, that much is certain; and everyone we have ever loved and cared about will die, too, sometimes—heartbreakingly—before us. Being someone else, traveling the world, making new friends gives us a temporary reprieve from this knowledge, which is spared most of the animal kingdom. Busyness—or the simulated busyness of email addiction—numbs the pain of this awareness, but it can never totally submerge it. Given that our days are limited, our hours precious, we have to decide what we want to do, what we want to say, what and who we care about, and how we want to allocate our time to these things within the limits that do not and cannot change. In short, we need to slow down.

Our society does not often tell us this. Progress, since the dawn of the Industrial Age, is supposed to be a linear upward progression; graphs with upward slopes are a good sign. Processing speeds are always getting faster; broadband now makes dial- up seem like traveling by horse and buggy. Growth is eternal. But only two things grow indefinitely or have indefinite growth firmly ensconced at the heart of their being: cancer and the corporation. For everything else, especially in nature, the consuming fires eventually come and force a starting over.

The ultimate form of progress, however, is learning to decide what is working and what is not; and working at this pace, emailing at this frantic rate, is pleasing very few of us. It is encroaching on parts of our lives that should be separate or sacred, altering our minds and our ability to know our world, encouraging a further distancing from our bodies and our natures and our communities. We can change this; we have to change it. Of course email is good for many things; that has never been in dispute. But we need to learn to use it far more sparingly, with far less dependency, if we are to gain control of our lives ...

Please be sure to read the full commentary.

Exchange Server 2010 RC

pthurrott — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 23:42:43 GMT

As promised, Microsoft has delivered a public Release Candidate (RC) version of Exchange Server 2010. It's available in three ways:

Trial Software

The new Exchange Server 2010 Release Candidate is here. Download this 120-day free release candidate version and try the new features in your own environment. When you register for the Exchange Server 2010 RC software you will automatically receive valuable product evaluation resources assembled in one convenient location.

Virtual Hard Drive

The Microsoft VHD Test Drive Program provides customers with an enhanced server-based software evaluation experience that’s faster, better supported, and more flexible. You can now access the entire catalog of pre-configured Microsoft and partner products and solutions in the VHD format and start evaluating and testing today.

Online Trial

Experience the new world of Software plus Services through Microsoft Exchange Online, which enables you to try all the messaging and calendaring functionality you need with none of the administrative burden.

Enjoy.

Exchange Server 2010 RC1 this week

pthurrott — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 18:27:39 GMT

Steven Bink reports that Microsoft is set to deliver the Release Candidate 1 (RC1) version of its upcoming Exchange Server 2010:

Sources tell me that Microsoft will release Exchange 2010 Release Candidate 1 for public download this week!

So get your labs ready with Windows 2008 R2 to start testing out the next generation of the world’s most popular e-mail servers.

Exchange 2010 will help organizations reduce costs, protect communications and delight e-mail users ...

My understanding is that Exchange 2010 will be part of the Office 2010 product wave, but that Microsoft will actually launch it alongside Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 in October. So it sort of makes sense that the final release would be somewhere between October and whenever the majority of Office 2010 launches in 1H 2010.

Outlook Connector for Office 2010

pthurrott — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 22:02:47 GMT

If you're running the Outlook 2010 Technical Preview (cough), you may have noticed that the shipping version of the Outlook Connector--which enables you to use Windows Live Hotmail, contacts, and calendar with Microsoft Outlook--won't work. Well, no worries: Microsoft has quietly released a new version, in both 32-bit and 64-bit variants, for the Office 2010 Tech Preview. Here you go...

Outlook Connector for Office 2010 (x86)

Outlook Connector for Office 2010 (x64)

Thanks to Rafael via Twitter.

Gmail out of beta

pthurrott — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 16:28:45 GMT

... as is Google Docs, Google Calendar, and Google Talk. Turns out businesses looking at Google Apps (which combines these and other products) balked when confronted with the Beta tag (which had been on Gmail for a silly 5 years). In typical Google fashion, they don't actually mention this salient fact, but instead make a joke out of it. I'll skip that and get to the meat of the matter...

Today, beta is a thing of the past. Not just for Gmail, but for all of Google Apps — Gmail, Calendar, Docs, and Talk.

And that's it. The rest of this post is utter inanity. Seriously, Google. We get it. You're frivolous. But come on.

Which is dumb, because Gmail is awesome. Start treating it as an adult would, and maybe businesses will be more interested. Just a thought.

Hotmail rolls out email account aggregation

pthurrott — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 19:53:44 GMT

From Microsoft:

Today, Microsoft announced that Hotmail email account aggregation is rolling out in the US, Canada and Brazil. This is a feature that allows consumers to receive email from other POP-enabled email accounts (including Gmail, Yahoo! Mail and AOL) directly into their Windows Live Hotmail inbox. With this new feature, Windows Live Hotmail offers a one-stop place for managing email, making it easier for more than 400 million Windows Live customers worldwide to manage their multiple accounts from a single location.

For more info, check out the Windows Live Wire blog.

Xiant Filer for Microsoft Outlook

pthurrott — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 14:15:07 GMT

Xiant:

Xiant is dedicated to producing tools that make your time at the computer as productive as possible. Though we are launching our first products, our tech roots are second to none. Xiant Filer was created by technology innovator/Microsoft co-founder Paul G. Allen and engineers at Xiant, whose challenge was to ease management of overflowing Microsoft Office Outlook inboxes. Xiant has even more tools under development to help you be productive, organized, and connected with your stuff.

Xiant Filer

E-mail is a crucial productivity tool. As our dependency on e-mail grows and its volume increases, our mailboxes become increasingly difficult to manage. Quickly finding messages in a bloated inbox—from various senders and in multiple conversation threads—can prove difficult, if not impossible. And while there are many solutions out there to help manage and organize e-mail, each one typically requires an investment in time and effort that could be better spent on more important tasks.
If you use Microsoft Office Outlook as your e-mail application, the beta release of the Xiant Filer add-in can instantly help you more efficiently manage your e-mail.

So, if you need/want such a thing, here it is.

But please, dear God. Don't use this. In fact, don't use Outlook. I'm not saying Paul Allen is a bit out of touch, but releasing a utility for yesterday's email application these days is somewhat, well, out of touch. I realize a lot of people still use Outlook. But if this guy had his head in the right place, he'd be helping people remove the single-PC lock of such legacy applications. Your data should be available everywhere. Sorting it in a single place doesn't really obviate the underlying inefficiency of using such an application.

Thunderbird 3 Beta 1

pthurrott — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 22:03:07 GMT

Mozilla Messaging has released their first milestone preview of Thunderbird 3, the Mozilla-based email client:

Thunderbird 3 Beta 1 is now available for download. This milestone is focused on testing the core functionality of the new features and platform changes that will be included in Thunderbird 3. Thunderbird 3 Beta 1 includes new database technology that will make it possible to build fast new ways of navigating mail. For more background and for previews of experimental add-ons, visit this blog post.

New features and changes in this milestone that require feedback include:

Tab interface for Mail

Improvements to IMAP for faster message viewing

Improved message reader view

New Add-ons Manager

Improved Address Book interface

Improved import of mail from other Mail clients

Integration with Windows Vista search

Integration with Mac OS X Address Book

Mozilla Messaging’s David Ascher has some more information as well:

In some ways, this is a typical beta — we’ve changed a lot of code since Thunderbird 2, and we need a lot of people to tell us if we’ve made any boo-boos when fixing bugs. It’s also a good beta in that we’ve moved the product forward, in part thanks to new capabilities in the underlying Mozilla platform, which gives us faster performance all around, an add-on manager which will be even more useful for Thunderbird users than for Firefox users. We also have important new mail-specific capabilities, including a new “autosync” system that gets Thunderbird to download IMAP message bodies early, so they’re already there when you need them, and a much faster implementation for deleting and moving IMAP messages, which I can’t imagine living without at this point. The one-click add-to-addressbook is also an elegant and shameless ripoff of the Firefox bookmarking model, which our alpha users love.