Big companies usually have a bad rap for being able to change quickly, especially when it comes to changing with current trends and the like. Technology has made this statement tenfold truer, and it seems that if you’re not the company that’s just come up with the next best thing it usually takes more than one product cycle to finally catch up. Whatever opinion you may hold of them Microsoft has generally been one of those companies that seems to take forever when it comes to the mobile space and coming up with its own response. Generally this seems to be the case because they don’t want to be thought of as a me-too company, rather a company responding to the changes in the market with their own spin on things.
Recently we’ve gotten Office for Android on the Google Play Store which brings Microsoft’s Office to the Android platform in a big way. It’s free and it works really well, and now Microsoft is bringing their world famous Outlook client to Android today as well. Back in September we saw a brand new startup release an email app that promises to do its best to clean up your inbox in a new way. This was called Acompli, and it was purchased by Microsoft late last year just for this Outlook strategy. Over the past 2 months Microsoft has been working quickly with Acompli, something it’s not normally prone to do, and has come up with a fully functioning Outlook client based on Acompli.
This new email strategy is likely to grab millions as it launches in the Google Play Store today, and best of all it’s free. Microsoft has been increasingly working towards a company that releases free software and has you pay for their services, a strategy that’s received mixed responses as quarterly financial statements continue to be painted red. Right now it looks like the biggest changes to change Acompli into Outlook include customizable options that cater to a wider range of users than Acompli did. Giving the app the ability to toggle conversation view or customize what swiping left and right on an email in the list are all part of the experience, and one that you should be able to download any time now. There’s also support for popular email services like Gmail, Yahoo, iCloud and others so you don’t have to use more than one client for all your email needs. OWA for Android has been Microsoft’s poor solution for a long time now for Outlook users, and now we’ll finally get a proper native solution.