Outlook goes social!
Posted on Tue, Mar 02, 2010 @ 02:41 AM
The Outlook Social Connector (OSC), now in beta, aggregates content including photos, contact information, and status updates from external sources, such as social networking sites and corporate line-of-business applications, and displays it in a single pane in the Outlook e-mail client. The consolidated view could help users keep track of colleagues without leaving Outlook and visiting multiple Web sites. The OSC is implemented as an add-in for Outlook 2003 and later, which uses a provider model to communicate with data sources. Microsoft is developing providers for Windows Live and SharePoint, while partners Facebook, LinkedIn, and MySpace will offer providers for their networks using a publicly available SDK. (A LinkedIn provider beta is available now.) Office 2010, in beta now with final release expected mid-2010, includes an earlier beta of the OSC, which must be removed before installing the newest, separately available beta, which is 32-bit only and not compatible with 64-bit Office 2010. The latest OSC beta is available at www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=c87e257c-d76f-4785-a09b-af36babd6e32. The OSC LinkedIn provider beta is available at www.linkedin.com/outlook. OSC provider development documentation is at msdn.microsoft.com/library/ee829696(office.14).aspx.