Outlook on the web

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Outlook on the web
Developer(s)Microsoft
TypeWebmail, calendaring software
LicensePart of Exchange Server or Microsoft Office 365; licensing terms tallies
Websitemicrosoft.com/exchange/en-us/outlook-web-app.aspx

Outlook Web App (OWA), originally called Outlook Web Access and before that Exchange Web Connect (EWC), is a webmail service of Microsoft Exchange Server 5.0 and later. Outlook Web App comes as a part of Microsoft Exchange Server or Microsoft Office 365.

Uses

Microsoft provides Outlook Web App as part of Exchange Server to allow users to connect to their email accounts via a web browser, without requiring the installation of Microsoft Outlook. OWA supports S/MIME and includes features for manging calendars, contacts, tasks, documents (used with SharePoint or in 2010, Office Web Apps), and other mailbox content. In the Exchange 2007 release, OWA also offers read-only access to documents stored in Microsoft SharePoint sites and network UNC shares.[citation needed] Unlike Microsoft Outlook, OWA requires an internet connection to the Exchange Server for users to work with e-mail, calendars, etc.

Outlook Web App also is used as a part of Microsoft Office 365, and includes Microsoft Lync and SharePoint document sharing.

Functionality

Outlook Web App has had two interfaces available since its release with Exchange 2000: one with a complete feature set (known as Premium) and one with reduced functionality (known as Light or sometimes Lite). Prior to Exchange 2010, the Premium client required Internet Explorer. Exchange 2000 and 2003 require Internet Explorer 5 and later,[1][2] and Exchange 2007 requires Internet Explorer 6 and later.[3] Exchange 2010 requires Internet Explorer 7 or later, Mozilla Firefox 3.01 and later, Google Chrome, or Apple Safari 3.1 and later for full functionality.[4]

Exchange 2010 performs checks on the operating system type to restrict Mac OS X and GNU/Linux users to Firefox or Safari, thereby making Google Chrome only officially compatible on the Windows operating system, even though there is very little difference in its JavaScript and rendering capabilities between platforms.[5] The lacking Google Chrome and Linux support came with Exchange 2013, since then, even offline access is supported under Linux [6] and the browser restrictions are no longer an issue.[6]

In all versions of Exchange prior to 2010, the Light user interface is rendered for browsers other than Internet Explorer. The basic interface did not support search on Exchange Server 2003; the Light interface was then reworked for Exchange Server 2007. On Exchange Server 2007, OWA Light supports search for mail items, and managing contacts and the calendar was also improved.[7][8] Using Outlook Web Access 2010, a user can connect to an external email accounts.

History

Outlook Web Access was created in 1995 by Microsoft Program Manager Thom McCann on the Exchange Server team. An early working version was demonstrated by Microsoft Vice President Paul Maritz at Microsoft's famous Internet summit in Seattle on December 27, 1995. The first customer version was shipped as part of the Exchange Server 5.0 release in early 1997.

The first component to allow client-side scripts to issue HTTP requests (XMLHTTP) was originally written by the Outlook Web Access team.[9][10][citation needed] It soon became a part of Internet Explorer 5.0. Renamed XmlHttpRequest and standardized by the World Wide Web Consortium,[11] it has since become one of the cornerstones of the Ajax technology used to build advanced web applications.

Outlook Web App competes against hosted options provided by other companies such as Google Apps or Yahoo!'s Business Mail option, and locally installed alternatives to Exchange server such as Zimbra, Kolab, Zarafa, or Scalix.

References

  1. ^ "Exchange 2000 Outlook Web Access". Microsoft Corporation. 2002. Retrieved 2009-11-22.
  2. ^ "Improvements in Outlook Web Access 2003". Microsoft Corporation. 2006. Retrieved 2009-11-22.
  3. ^ "Client Features in Outlook Web Access". Microsoft Corporation. 2008. Retrieved 2009-11-22.
  4. ^ "Outlook Web App Supported Browserss". Microsoft Corporation. Retrieved 2010-04-21.
  5. ^ "Outlook Web App Supported Browsers". Microsoft Corporation. 2009. Retrieved 2009-11-22.
  6. ^ a b Supported browsers for Outlook Web App - support. Office.microsoft.com. Retrieved on 2014-04-12.
  7. ^ "Microsoft Office Outlook Web Access". Microsoft Corporation. 2007. Retrieved 2009-05-27.
  8. ^ "Client Features in Outlook Web Access". Microsoft Corporation. 2008-03-14. Retrieved 2009-05-27.
  9. ^ Le Roy, Bertrand (2006). "Some history: from XmlHttp to UpdatePanel". ASP.NET AJAX UpdatePanel Control. O'Reilly Short Cuts. p. 2. ISBN 978-0-596-52747-1. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  10. ^ Hopmann, Alex. "The story of XMLHTTP". Archived from the original on 2007-06-23. Retrieved 6 January 2014.
  11. ^ "The XMLHttpRequest Object". W3C. 15 April 2008. Retrieved 2008-10-01.

See also

External links

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