Microsoft Outlook 98 Low Encryption Release =========================================== March 1998 Microsoft Outlook 98 is Microsoft's premier messaging and collaboration client. It combines the leading support for Internet standards-based messaging systems—including Microsoft Exchange Server—with integrated calendar, contact, and task-management features. Outlook makes it easy to: Get connected, communicate and share information with others. Work seamlessly with Microsoft Office 97, Microsoft Exchange Server, and Internet Explorer 4.0. Organize and view information. ------------------------------ Outlook 98 helps users communicate with others through e-mail, telephone, group scheduling and real-time NetMeeting™ conferencing software. Outlook helps users share information with others through Internet connectivity, Microsoft Exchange Server public folders, electronic forms, and as a component of customized collaborative solutions. Outlook integrates and organizes all this communication and shared information in one application. Microsoft Outlook 98 is an important product upgrade that is arriving at a time of significant change in the way individuals and organizations work together. Microsoft has responded by delivering an innovative integrated electronic mail, information management, and collaboration product. Outlook 98 contains new technologies that enable the use of the Internet for collaboration, information sharing, and business solutions. It also continues its role as the client fully optimized for the fast-growing number of companies who rely on Microsoft Exchange Server for scalable, advanced e-mail, calendaring, and collaboration features on their business critical intranets. Outlook, teamed with Microsoft Office and Microsoft Internet Explorer, provides an integrated suite of tools for personal productivity and for managing all your personal, group, and Internet information—from e-mail, contacts, and schedules to Web pages, favorites, and channels. This functionality is essential to building virtual teams within an organization and in connecting organizations to their customers in powerful extranet business solutions. Outlook 98, Office 97, Internet Explorer 4.0, and Microsoft Exchange Server 5.5 are innovative technologies that work together to bring you the power of Internet communication and collaboration. Following is a summary of the key product features and benefits of Outlook 98 and the design philosophy behind each. Connect, Communicate, and Collaborate Effectively ----------------------- Users need to easily install client software, import settings and data from existing e-mail products, and get connected to the e-mail and collaboration server providers they choose. Outlook 98's ease of use makes users productive, with integrated e-mail, group scheduling, and collaboration capabilities. Communicate and Collaborate on the Internet. --------- Outlook 98 provides industry-leading high-performance support for Internet mail, directory and calendaring standards, including POP3, IMAP4, S/MIME, NNTP, LDAP, vCard, vCalendar, and iCalendar, making Outlook98 the best choice for Internet mail, news and calendaring users. Users can exchange rich information and web pages using HTML formatted e-mail, send special customized HTML Stationery e-mail, share contact information with business-card-like Internet "vCards", and schedule meetings using shared calendars and sending meeting requests—all via the Internet. Premier Client for Microsoft Exchange Server. --------------------------------------------- Outlook 98 builds upon Outlook 97's role as the client fully optimized for the fast-growing number of companies that rely on Microsoft Exchange Server's scalable and advanced e-mail, calendaring, and collaboration features for their business critical intranets. Outlook for Windows® 3.x and the Macintosh editions are available for Microsoft Exchange Server users and provide baseline messaging and calendaring interoperability. Outlook 98 interoperates with Outlook 97 and earlier versions of Microsoft Mail, Microsoft Exchange client, or Schedule+ without requiring an Exchange Server upgrade. Setup Wizard. ------------- Outlook 98's setup wizard automatically detects appropriate installation options and imports existing accounts, profile information, folders, and personal address books from earlier versions of Outlook, Outlook Express, Netscape Messenger, or Eudora, making it easy to install Outlook 98 and upgrade to it from other e-mail products. Outlook Today. -------------- Outlook 98 gives users the power to manage e-mail, calendar, and task information in one place. The innovative new "Outlook Today" view gives users a customizable "day-at-a-glance" summary of upcoming meetings, tasks due, and number of e-mail messages received overnight—all without switching between windows. Rules Wizard. ------------- Makes it easy for users to create rules to automatically folder, delete, highlight, forward, and flag incoming and outgoing e-mail, enhancing e-mail management and prioritization. Features are also included to identify and deal with "junk" e-mail or "spam." Flag for Follow-up. ------------------- Allows users to flag e-mail messages or contacts to help prioritize, schedule, and track required follow-up actions (such as reply, read, or call back). Users can easily sort by Follow-up Flags to track completion. AutoPreview and Preview Pane. ----------------------------- Outlook 98 makes reading e-mail fast and efficient. AutoPreview automatically displays the first three lines of each e-mail message so that users can quickly determine which messages to read or delete. The Preview Pane displays the complete contents of any selected message without opening a separate window. Voting and Tracking. -------------------- Outlook has made it easy to manage votes, including providing customizable Voting Buttons that will appear in the message header. Outlook automatically tallies votes and tracks whether messages have been delivered, read, or deleted without being read. Message Recall. --------------- This allows a user to recall a message sent over the Internet or using Microsoft Exchange Server to another user of Outlook, as long as the recipient has not opened or moved it. Users can also replace a sent message with another substitute e-mail message. Meeting Planner. ---------------- The meeting planner makes it easy to schedule group meetings (either face-to-face meetings or real-time conferences with NetMeeting). The planner helps users choose attendees, check available times (including free/busy times shared on the Internet), and send meeting invitations. It will even automatically pick the next available time for all attendees. Contact Manager. ---------------- From the Outlook Contact Manager, users can dial a phone (and keep a record of the call), send e-mail or a fax, jump to a Web site, use the Microsoft Expedia travel service web site to automatically download a map of a contact's address, or initiate a real time conference with Microsoft NetMeeting. Collaboration Applications. Users can easily share information by publishing a contact list or calendar to a Microsoft Exchange Server public folder. Using Outlook 98 and Microsoft Exchange Server, developers can create customized information routing, discussion, tracking and line-of-business applications specifically tailored to the needs of an organization. A growing number of solution providers and third-party software vendors develop collaboration applications for Exchange and Outlook -------------------- Integration with Microsoft Office, Microsoft Exchange Server, and Internet Explorer Customers continue to expect consistency and integration throughout all the Microsoft applications. Microsoft designed Outlook to integrate seamlessly with the rest of Office 97, Microsoft Exchange Server, and Internet Explorer 4.0, so that users can be organized across applications and easily share information throughout their organization. Office ------ Users can take advantage of the Outlook Contact Manager and Word Mail Merge integration. Users can attach Office files to any Outlook item (such as appointments, tasks, contacts or e-mail). Outlook Journal can be used to find an Office file (or Outlook item) based on when the user worked on that file, not on what it was named or where it was saved. Outlook automatically notes when a user works on any file. Users can drag and drop between Outlook items and Office applications. Users can create tasks from Word, Microsoft Excel, or PowerPoint®. Users have all the great WordMail features and formatting of Word 97 in Outlook e-mail, either as their default editor, or by easily turning Word on or off as the e-mail editor. Users share the consistent Office title bars, command bar, pull-down menus, shortcut menus, tabbed dialog boxes, toolbars, icons, and right-mouse clicks to leverage learning and ease of use. Microsoft Exchange Server ------------------------- Microsoft Exchange Server enables a number of unique advanced e-mail features, such as redirected replies, message expiration, and deferred delivery. Microsoft Exchange Server lets users grant delegate-access privileges to their co-workers so that others can monitor their e-mail, calendar, contacts and tasks. Microsoft Exchange Server is the comprehensive group-scheduling engine behind Outlook, enabling the viewing of free/busy time, calendar details, and shared calendars. The tight integration of Outlook with Microsoft Exchange Server allows custom Outlook and Exchange-based collaboration applications to utilize Microsoft Exchange Servers for storage, synchronized offline folders, directory, routing, server-side agent scripting, forms libraries, and Web access services. Internet Explorer 4.0 --------------------- Users can start Outlook 98 from Internet Explorer 4.0 to send/receive e-mail and create contacts. Outlook 98 shares the HTML rendering and News Reader of IE 4.0 to give users the most advanced Internet support available. Outlook can be used as an alternate way to view and navigate to Internet Explorer Favorites. Organize Information in One Place --------------------------------- Microsoft learned from users that they want a well-integrated e-mail environment so that they can be more organized and in control of their daily activities. Outlook lets users easily organize and manage all of their e-mail, calendar, contact, and task information using a single integrated application. Work in an integrated environment. ---------------------------------- Outlook is designed to manage critical information all in one place: e-mail, calendar, contacts, and tasks. The innovative new "Outlook Today" view provides a customizable "day-at-a-glance" view in Outlook that summarizes today's Mail, Calendar, and Tasks. This view can also be displayed on the Windows Active Desktop. Find and Organize Tools. ------------------------ These innovative features let users quickly find messages, appointments, tasks, or other information using easy Web-style searching. They also guide users with plain English instructions through applying Outlook's powerful e-mail organization features, including folders, views, and rules. AutoCreate. ----------- E-mail messages often prompt users to create a task on their task list, add the sender to their contact list, or schedule a meeting. With AutoCreate, users can simply drag and drop an e-mail message into their Outlook 98 Tasks, Contacts, or Calendar, and Outlook automatically creates a new task, contact, or meeting request with no retyping of information. Stay organized anywhere. ------------------------ A complete, portable solution, Outlook 98 lets users take information on the road. When used with Microsoft Exchange Server, synchronized Offline Folders allow the user to work with server-based information whether online or offline. Outlook98 automatically synchronizes the Offline Folders in the background while online and offers filtered synchronization. Outlook also synchronizes with all leading palmtop devices, including the new Pocket Outlook in all Windows CE devices, Palm Pilot, and the Timex® DataLink watch. In addition, Outlook 98 includes extensive printing formats for users of paper day-timers.