Microsoft hoped to end speculation about the future of
its free e-mail client by claiming that it has not stopped working
with Outlook Express.
"Work on improving and enhancing Outlook Express never stopped,"
Matt Pilla, senior product manager for Windows at Microsoft
said.
Dan Leach, lead product manager for Office at Microsoft, said
that Microsoft had stopped development of Outlook Express and was
instead focusing on MSN and Hotmail for consumer e-mail.
However, a spokesman for Microsoft's Windows division at the
agency said that Leach's statement was "inaccurate".
Microsoft did at some point halt development of Outlook Express,
moving it to what it calls "sustain engineering" mode, but
subsequently reversed that decision because of customer demand, he
said.
Leach apparently had not heard about the reprieve for Outlook
Express, the spokesman said. "We have been in the process of making
this change known inside Microsoft," he said.
Later the spokesman issued a more "accurate" statement that
removed the part about halting the development of Outlook
Express.
When a product goes into sustain engineering mode it essentially
means it is dead, said Rob Enderle, a principal analyst with
Enderle Group.
Microsoft ships Outlook Express as part of the Windows operating
system. To date, updates have been delivered together with the
Internet Explorer web browser. The product is aimed at home users
and Microsoft sells businesses a richer Outlook client as part of
its Office suite.
Enderle had been expecting Microsoft to terminate Outlook
Express. It seems the product, even though a target of many worms
and viruses, is a tough one to kill.
"It is hard for me to understand why Microsoft needs two e-mail
clients," Enderle said. "I think Outlook Express is a redundant
product that is not strategic. Outlook makes money and also
connects to other products such as Exchange. It lowers the research
and development costs if they are only working on one e-mail
client."
Joris Evers writes for IDG News Service