- Microsoft and Lookout<DIV>Microsoft bought the company that makes a product called <A href="http://www.lookoutsoft.com/Lookout/">Lookout</A>, a product that lets you search your Outlook database for emails, notes, etc. </DIV>
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<DIV>Joel asks “<A href="http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2004/07/19.html">Could Microsoft have possibly bought Lookout just to shut them down?</A>” I think the answer is “probably”. </DIV>
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<DIV>Lookout is basically an Outlook hack that indexes stuff in Outlook's database and lets you do very fast searches of it. Microsoft doesn't need a third party company to develop this sort of technology - they could leverage other database and search technology they already have and add that functionality themselves in no time.</DIV>
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<DIV>But Microsoft's strategy for this in the future is <A href="http://msdn.microsoft.com/Longhorn/understanding/pillars/WinFS/default.aspx">WinFS</A>. Everything will be in WinFS and you'll use that to search. It wouldn't be very good if WinFS finally showed up and we didn't need it anymore...</DIV>
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<DIV>The funny part is how Lookout's open letter talks about how they're going to be working with MSN. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>Thu, 01 Sep 2005 19:17:07 GMT