Thursday, August 22, 2002
Outlook XP will no longer come free with a Pocket PC
Posted by Jason Dunn in "THOUGHT" @ 02:20 PM
...but Outlook 2000 will. There's been some buzz lately about Microsoft pulling Outlook from the Pocket PC bundle. This made no sense to me, or many others, because ActiveSync can only talk to Outlook (perhaps it's more of a mumble). How could Microsoft ship a Pocket PC without a desktop client to sync against? The answer is, they aren't going to. They are, however, going to downgrade the software from Outlook XP to Outlook 2000. Fujitsu-Siemens shipping the Loox with NO version of Outlook was an error on their part.
Why is Microsoft doing this? There are many reasons, but ultimately I believe it comes down to this: the team responsible for Outlook XP feels the value of their product is diluted when it's bundled with something else rather than sold on its own or sold as part of the very expensive Office XP suite. Also, with the next version of Outlook sporting a radically new UI, I think they want to drive the perceived value of Outlook up rather than keeping it bundled.
This is not a decision the Mobile Devices team made, it's a decision made by the Outlook team. Apparently in the surveys they did, most Pocket PC owners already had a copy of Outlook. It makes sense to me - I never install Outlook off the Pocket PC CD because I already have it installed from Office. If Pocket PC users want Outlook XP, they'll have to pay $99 US to buy it - there is no upgrade for Outlook (that I could find).
Right off the bat, the repercussions are fairly minor - I can't think of any features that XP offers that differ from 2000 in terms of what the Pocket PC can take advantage of. However, I see two problems that may crop up based on this decision:
1) Microsoft doesn't support old software forever. Being one notch behind the software curve means you have to deal with the bugs that they will have (hopefully) fixed in the current version of Outlook.
2) What will this mean for future versions of ActiveSync? Let's say Outlook 2003 supports a great new feature that the ActiveSync team wants to use, but Pocket PCs are shipping with Outlook 2002. Will our future ActiveSync experience be hampered by not having the latest version? What about those of us that will have the latest version of Outlook - will we be held back by the lowest common denominator of what comes in the box?
Tell me what you think and cast your vote in the survey.
Why is Microsoft doing this? There are many reasons, but ultimately I believe it comes down to this: the team responsible for Outlook XP feels the value of their product is diluted when it's bundled with something else rather than sold on its own or sold as part of the very expensive Office XP suite. Also, with the next version of Outlook sporting a radically new UI, I think they want to drive the perceived value of Outlook up rather than keeping it bundled.
This is not a decision the Mobile Devices team made, it's a decision made by the Outlook team. Apparently in the surveys they did, most Pocket PC owners already had a copy of Outlook. It makes sense to me - I never install Outlook off the Pocket PC CD because I already have it installed from Office. If Pocket PC users want Outlook XP, they'll have to pay $99 US to buy it - there is no upgrade for Outlook (that I could find).
Right off the bat, the repercussions are fairly minor - I can't think of any features that XP offers that differ from 2000 in terms of what the Pocket PC can take advantage of. However, I see two problems that may crop up based on this decision:
1) Microsoft doesn't support old software forever. Being one notch behind the software curve means you have to deal with the bugs that they will have (hopefully) fixed in the current version of Outlook.
2) What will this mean for future versions of ActiveSync? Let's say Outlook 2003 supports a great new feature that the ActiveSync team wants to use, but Pocket PCs are shipping with Outlook 2002. Will our future ActiveSync experience be hampered by not having the latest version? What about those of us that will have the latest version of Outlook - will we be held back by the lowest common denominator of what comes in the box?
Tell me what you think and cast your vote in the survey.
