E-Mail has become an important tool in the daily work, and the e-mail reading software are among the most common software in business. Within organizations based on Microsoft products, the most common e-mail reading software is Outlook. This can be seen also in the popularity many 3rd party tools that got add-ons for Outlook to allow the user to access their software from his work environment.
With the introduction of the 2007 version of the Office products several new capabilities were added to Outlook and SharePoint which allows better integration. Microsoft focus in this version was on accessability, which means allowing the user to view the SharePoint data within Outlook. This enables the user to work directly with SharePoint from Outlook, without opening the web browser.
SharePoint 2007 enables the user to map objects to Outlook thus allowing easy access. The objects that can be mapped are not only document libraries but also contact lists, calendars and other objects. This integration moves part of the SharePoint user interface to Outlook, and uses Outlook as the viewing tool. In this version Microsoft did little to allow the user to exchange data between Outlook native e-mails, and the new objects mapped from SharePoint.
A new and exciting feature, that opens new markets for SharePoint, is the off-line capability. This allows the user to mark document for off-line work in Outlook, and working on the documents without connectivity to the office servers.
For more information you may check Microsoft office integration web page.
