Outlook 2007 reinforces message Management

Microsoft's latest version of Outlook personal Information Management program has done a number of enhancements, and software testers and analysts say these improvements will help early adopters deal with larger inboxes.

Jason Clarke's real desk may be a mess, but his virtual office is neat because he insists on diligent and responsible responses, filing, or deletion of more than 400 emails received every day. Clarke is the technical sales and marketing manager of Wenco International Mining Systems, Canada, and for him, the number of emails in the inbox is beyond a single screen, and it is simply unbearable. In real life, typical "file managers" like Clarke are not uncommon, and they typically spend hours a day managing their Microsoft Outlook applications.

In Microsoft's latest Microsoft Outlook 2007, many improvements have been made to the Messaging Management feature. Since November 2006, Outlook 2007 is available to corporate users, and at the end of January 2007, Outlook 2007 's new features will be delivered to consumer users.

Several early users and analysts in Outlook 2007 believe that one important improvement of the software is the increased ability to search for e-mail. Currently, Outlook 2007 is still part of Office 2007 for users, or as a stand-alone product, at a price of $109.95.

"When you use Outlook 2003, searching for thousands of messages in old inboxes is too slow, which makes outlook almost impossible to use," said Peter Pawlak, an analyst with directions on Microsoft in the US. "In contrast, Outlook 2007 establishes the user's e-mail index," he notes.

Dawie Olivier, the IT project manager at Sasfin Bank in South Africa, said: "Once the index is complete, the speed of the search is staggering." "Sasfin Bank was part of the Office 2007 Technology Adoption Program early in 2006, migrating mail systems to Outlook 2007." Since then, Olivier has reduced the time spent on e-mail processing from two hours to 45 minutes a day.

Not only will new Outlook return a specific search result immediately, Olivier also says the new software allows him to create e-mail views based on predefined keywords. Olivier said that the latter feature and Outlook 2007 support for larger e-mail accounts enabled him to eliminate a mail document system that has been added to more than 300 folders and subfolders.

Microsoft is positioning Outlook as a communications dashboard for information workers, says Jessica Arnold, product Manager at Microsoft Outlook 2007. For example, Outlook 2007 lets users send instant messages without having to start Office Communicator client software. She says Outlook will eventually become a repository of information for most workers, regardless of whether they are e-mail, IM, or voice format.

Although Outlook 2007 has many improvements, it does not seem to be a "perfect application". Clarke says that while the efficiency of mail management has improved, he will continue to use an add-on called Clearcontext IMS, which can be used to compress long e-mail exchanges into threads that are easier to manage.

Outlook 2007 Feature Improvements

Quickly obtain search results using an indexed engine.

A built-in RSS collection program for reading web feeds and blogs.

Better integration with SharePoint Portal Server and Exchange 2007.

Displays the task bar for user appointments and active task snapshots.