What s Common Across All Versions of Outlook

What's Common Across All Versions of Outlook

Outlook has "come a long way" since Outlook 97. When Outlook 97 was being designed, the Outlook team worked without any real communication with the Exchange team, the team that was building the servers to run their application! As a result, the collaborative tools didn't really exist in Outlook 97, and although operability between Exchange and Outlook existed, it was lacking. However, starting with Outlook 98, the integration of the two teams has become tighter. This culminates in the release of Outlook 2003, which, not by chance, is being released at the same time as Exchange Server 2003. This sends a clear message that the two teams now work very closely with each other. During the design process, the Outlook team received user input of desired features and implemented what it could; the team also communicated with the Exchange team to implement what the Outlook team couldn't or what would work better on the server side. The results are greater integration of products, better solutions for the end user , and improved collaborative tools.

Comparing Outlook 97, Outlook 98, Outlook 2000, Outlook XP/2002, and Outlook 2003

Many features currently available in Outlook 2003 have been around for many generations of Outlook. However, with each generation, a concerted effort has been made to make things better, faster, more streamlined, and more integrated. In the beginning in Outlook 97, the focus of Outlook was almost strictly messaging and calendaring. In subsequent generations of Outlook, the focus turned more toward automated functions such as forms and rules, as well as application integration with Instant Messenger and Internet Explorer, and integration with Exchange.

The last few versions have focused more on security than past versions, especially in Outlook XP and Outlook 2003. A focus on views, the user interface, and easier ways for the end user to flag and organize mail items have also become a major focus, evident the most in XP and Outlook 2003. Throughout all Outlook versions, the focus has always been to streamline the new version, add new functionality, and make Outlook faster. With Outlook 2003, a major focus is on collaborative tools. With the use of Microsoft's Sharepoint Portal in tandem with Exchange Server 2003, the collaborative functionality of Outlook is far superior than that of Outlook 2003 without Sharepoint Portal. However, the collaborative functionality is still enhanced in the latest version of Outlook.

The Basic Outlook Features

As mentioned earlier, the basic outlook features (such as the Calendar, messaging, and tasks ) have been around since Outlook 97. However, throughout the versions, changes have been made to enhance their ease of use and navigation, and to include new application integration such as Instant Messenger and Netmeeting.

With regard to messaging, each new version strives to make enhancements to sending and receiving email, such as addressing changes, address book changes, and other sending/receiving functionality improvements. Additionally, enhancements to the user dictionaries make it easier to view sizes of email messages, arrange messages to make them easier to organize and view, and generally streamline the end user experience.

Security

Security enhancements have also been included in each Outlook iteration. For example, as spam has become more of an issue, the newer versions of Outlook have included client-configurable antispam options. All versions have improved upon the S/MIME support.

Collaboration

Collaboration is a major reason companies use Outlook as their end user messaging product. With each new version, the collaborative power of Outlook has increased. Although many tools are available for an Outlook 2003 user with just Exchange on the back-end, with the addition of Microsoft's new Sharepoint Portal product, the possibilities for collaboration with Outlook 2003 and Exchange Server 2003 have reached impressive new levels. The section on collaboration later in this chapter focuses only on the collaborative tools available to users who aren't using Sharepoint. However, if collaboration is of major importance in an enterprise, the administrator should investigate implementing Sharepoint Portal for the full collaborative possibilities.

Other Enhancements

With each new release of the Outlook client, Microsoft added new features to enhance the functionality of the product. Whether making it faster, sleeker, or more user-friendly, or adding/removing features and functionality, each new iteration is better than the previous version and integrates better with Exchange as well as other applications. Outlook 2003 is no exception to this rule. This chapter covers many of the most useful new features, as well as some of the older ones. However, with all the improvements and changes, a full book could be written on the new Outlook 2003 client alone.