Microsoft has launched dedicated native apps for Outlook Web App for iOS, available for iPhone as well as iPad.
Through the app, enterprise users will be able to get email, calendar and contact functionality that they get in Outlook Web App on their web browsers, provided they subscribe to Office 365 that includes Exchange Online support.
Microsoft says that the apps will also offer additional capabilities that are only possible through native integration of the app with mobile devices.
The app can be downloaded from the App Store and after signing in with their Office 365/ Exchange credentials, users can switch between Mail, Calendar, People and Options by tapping on the icon in the bottom left corner of the app. The button brings up a navigation screen that features Windows Phone/ Windows 8 like tiles for Mail, People, Calendar and Settings. In fact the Calendar tile is a live-tile that features details related to upcoming meetings.
The same button when pressed for a longer time brings voice input, which can be used for giving commands for performing actions like opening the calendar and writing a new email.
The app icon also offers a badge for unseen mails in addition to push notifications that the app offers for new mail.
The mail inbox in Outlook Web App for iPad offers a two-column view, taking advantage of the iPad's bigger screen real estate, displaying the list view and reading pane with the folder pane collapsed.
The inbox in the iPhone app offers a one-column list view and features controls to switch to the folder pane and reading pane. The app offers a touch optimised user interface with support for gestures like tapping and swiping.
In addition to these, users can read and create Information Rights Management (IRM) protected email in the app. The app also displays out-of-office messages and other MailTips in the header of the compose section, in addition to apps like Bing Maps for Outlook.
The app also offers offline use functionality allowing users to read, delete and flag messages, and compose new messages or reply to messages in their inbox. They can also view and edit calendar and contacts offline.
The Calendar in the iPad app offers day, week, work week and month + agenda views and allows users to swipe from day-to-day, week-to-week or month-to-month. The calendar app for iPhone offers day, month and agenda views. The app also offers full delegate access to the calendar, and access to multiple and shared calendars.
The app also offers contact integration of Outlook contacts with the iPhone's caller ID. The ability to sync these contacts to the device can even be controlled by the company's IT department.
Outlook Web App for iOS also offers remote wipe capability enabling IT departments to delete email and calendar data in the app from the device in the event that the device gets lost or the user leaves the organisation.
Software giant Microsoft had announced that it is going to stop support services to 'Windows XP' OS from April 8 next year and according to cyber-space authorities monitoring the Indian internet systems, the decision will have a direct effect for the all the users working on the same OS.
"The end of support of Windows XP Operating System means that Microsoft will not provide security updates, non-security hotfixes, free or paid assisted support and any online technical support for the Windows XP. In the absence of patches and security updates for the Windows XP OS, the computer systems would be at greater risks and could be easily compromised by the hackers.
"There would also be compliance issues due to un- supported and un-patched components in the IT infrastructure which may result in non-compliance and suspension of certifications by the certifying and auditing organizations.
The software vendors and hardware manufacturers will also stop support for Windows XP on their new versions and models," the Computer Emergency Response Team-India (CeRT-IN) said in its latest advisory to computer users in India.
"It is recommended that all the users and organisations using Window XP OS in their environment should immediately plan for upgradation to the latest available OS according to their requirement and test software applications well before April, 2014," it said.
According to officials, the maximum of Indian computer and laptop users operate on Windows platform and after the recent declaration, users should keep themselves informed about the new and secure OS available in the market.
Microsoft had initially released Windows XP OS in August 2001. The current release version of Windows XP is called the Windows XP Service Pack 3.
Since then, three successor versions of client based OS namely Windows Vista in November 2006, Windows 7 in July 2009 and Windows 8 in August 2012 were released by Microsoft.
The latest client based OS available from the Microsoft stable is Windows 8.
Some add-ins didn't really excite me. The ability to resize the split-screen, which lets you do more than one thing at once, lacked pizazz. On the Acer and even Microsoft's own Surface Pro, you can only split the screen in two, and only at fixed intervals. With the update, the screens can be half-and-half or roughly cover one-third or two-thirds of the screen, instead of one taking up a sliver as in Windows 8.
Another feature is a predictive text function. Windows 8.1 offers up three predictions for words you are typing on an onscreen keyboard when in certain apps like Mail. To me, the feature seemed to be more annoying than useful, even though you can select the options with sideways swipes on the space bar.
Yet another feature turned the camera into a motion detector. In one demo, Microsoft's new "Food and Drink" app lets users swipe through a recipe with mid-air hand gestures. In practice, this often failed, sometimes turning pages in the wrong direction or not reacting at all. Still, it's a way to struggle through a recipe if your hands are coated with sauce.
At Wednesday's presentation, Microsoft executives previewed future Windows functions that could come in handy, including voice recognition in apps and contextual understanding of spoken questions.
For example, corporate vice president Gurdeep Singh Pall demonstrated a prototype travel planning app that not only showed 3-D overhead views of cities but gave computer-voice tours of various monuments. Speaking the question "Who is the architect?" brought up a webpage showing the answer, simply because the building that the architect designed was in view in the maps app."Apps are going to have eyes, they're going to have ears, they're going to have a mouth," said Pall.
As of this month, Microsoft says its new Windows platform will have 100,000 apps, and the company made it clear it hopes developers make even more, incorporating some of the new tools it has made available to them.
Ballmer said in his keynote he hopes that Windows 8.1 also offers a "great path forward" for users of the millions of programs that work on older versions of Windows. By showing off a variety of enticing features of the new interface, however, it's clear that path leads through the "Modern" world.