A year ago, information leaked on the Monarch project. This is a project by Microsoft to consolidate the many different versions of its Outlook email and calendar product. At the time, Microsoft was planning to roll out its “One Outlook” product and strategy in 2021. Monarch is still going strong, but now it looks like most of the new One Outlook strategy and deliverables will be rolling out. This year.
Microsoft currently has different versions of Outlook for Windows, Mac, web, iOS, and Android devices (based on the Acompli technology it acquired), which its makers tend to refer to (confusingly) as the term “Outlook”. The new One Outlook – which should also be referred to as the old “Outlook” once it becomes available – will work on the Windows desktop (Win32/UWP; Intel and Arm), web, and macOS desktop. The new Outlook will look a lot like Outlook for the web, it seems.
Microsoft has been testing Monarch/One Outlook for several months internally, with increasingly large groups of employees. According to my sources, the company plans to make an official announcement regarding One Outlook in the spring. According to my contacts, Microsoft may be ready to provide a test version of the new Outlook to Windows Insiders in the Dev and Beta channels in late March or early April 2022. By the end of July or August of this year, Microsoft hopes to be able to make it available to insiders in the slow channel, although that target date may be pushed back until the fall, according to my contacts.
Replace the built-in Windows Mail/Calendar client with the new Outlook
The initial Monarch leak indicated that Microsoft was considering replacing Windows’ built-in Mail/Calendar client with the new Outlook. It seems that this strategy is still relevant, but it could be more progressive than expected.
When Microsoft releases the next feature update for Windows 10 and 11 around October 2022, the new Outlook will be an option and will be pinned alongside the existing Mail and Calendar apps, according to my sources. Microsoft will likely try to get Windows users to try out the new Outlook, but it doesn’t appear to be forcing users to migrate to it this calendar year. I don’t know if sometime next year Microsoft will require Windows users to adopt the new Outlook and remove the existing Mail and Calendar apps.
According to the initial leak, Microsoft had no plans to replace the old Outlook Win32 client with the new Outlook until much later.
Source: ZDNet.com