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Originally Posted by Jason Dunn
The thing that concerns me with every new version of Outlook is that the ActiveSync team seems to be a blip on the radar of the Outlook team..."
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I don' know if I completely agree with that statement. What I mean is, while activesync may be a blip on the Outlook team's radar, Pocket Outlook, PocketPCs, and email, is not.
One of the features I've read about (I can't remeber where I read it, so I can't swear to it being fact or rumor) is that Microsoft had developed a way for Outlook to communicate with Exchange server remotely AND securely. In my opinion, Microsoft has always sold not to market that does exist, but one that will. And they are rich enough to just throw a product into the market and take a loss in the short term until their product is ubiquitous. An example of how this has worked for Microsoft would be IE and the host of services they knew all along would become available through the Internet. I mean, as a techie, I always expected great things from the www. But every once in a while, I see something and say to myself "How freakin' cool is that! Who'da thunk it?" Micrososft thunk it, that's who.
An example of how this will work for Microsoft in the future is the XBOX, which they will continue to compete against Sony with, just throwing more and more money at the product, slowly building a loyal fan base until they reign supreme.
That's not to say their approach is foolproof. An example of how this approach has completely failed can be seen in the "Active Desktop" feature. Anyone know of ANY current active desktop apps? I digress...
At the same time, Microsoft, in my opinion, is also good at steering the market in the direction they choose. An example of this is only providing broadband support on the XBOX. It becomes a compelling reason to get broadband, which helps all of Microsofts business units.
I think what Microsoft is doing here is selling to the market that has not matured yet. The wireless market. And they will steer us to it and we will lap it up. Between the current reasonable price per seat of activesync server, this new "secure" means of connecting to an exchange server, the fact that activesync is being built in to the new version of Exchange, and connectivity becoming more available on portable devices, Microsoft may see Activesync as a product with a relatively short life span. Instead, they will steer us all torward wireless by compelling us with a much smarter, cooler, and dare I say better way of doing things, from syncing information to mangaging iinformation
Sorry for the long diatribe.
Just my two cents...
Microsoft Gives Peek at Outlook 11
Linear Mode
