Outlook 2007 as "Mission Control"

Yet another post in my "Office 2007™ is Actually Damned Good" series. While I think it's becoming clear the Windows™ operating system is pretty much headed nowhere (Vista™ by all accounts has been a major yawn at best, and the next Microsoft OS is years away), the advantages of using "real" Office 2007™ over the dozen or so alternatives are also becoming clear, at least to me.

Remember when Microsoft wasn’t “Getting” the online world ? Outlook™ couldn’t wire to anything except its own Exchange server, and

It's also clear that Microsoft is putting a lot of their eggs in the Office™ basket, and particularly the ability to wire Office 2007™ to various "stuff" online. Like SharePoint™ for example. Or other non-Microsoft sites and services.

Take OL2007 (MS shorthand for Outlook™ 2007) - as you can see in the screenshot above, I have my Outlook™ 2007 inbox turned into a pretty good “Unified Inbox” – meaning I can access just about everything in one spot. Exchange mail, Yahoo Mail, eFax faxes, my uReach inbox, SharePoint™ (including calendars, online/offline document libraries, other lists such as contacts and tasks, etc.) , plus a totally non-Microsoft inbox for these blog posts.

Even with all this – I’m just scratching the surface. I could, for example, also have voice mail from our office PBX system flow into my Exchange inbox. In a sense, Outlook™ is “becoming” my “operating system” - it’s the one piece of software I use 24/7.

I also think this spells eventual doom to other third-party developers. Two examples I can think of immediately – Small-business Accounting vendors (can you say “QuickBooks”) and third-party contact managers (think ACT!). Since Microsoft is rolling both basic accounting and CRM functionality directly into MSOffice, and then exposing all those components in Outlook™, I don’t think the other guys have a chance. Even though they all attempt to “integrate” with Office, it’s still a major kludge compared to just being there in the first place. I believe most users will give up a little feature/functionality in return for the convenience of having everything in one place.