Microsoft has planned new mobile versions of Outlook that make use of the technology it acquired in last year’s $200 million purchase of email startup Acompli.
Microsoft Brings Outlook to iPhone and Android
The new versions build on technology Redmond gained with last year’s $200 million purchase.
Microsoft
The company on Thursday is releasing an iOS version of Outlook and a preview version of Outlook for Android, both of which use Accompli’s tech as well as a fairly significant amount of work by the team over the last 60 days. The biggest changes include customizable options, according to Javier Soltero, the former Acompli CEO who is now a general manager on Microsoft’s Office team.
“The tendency for mobile products is to be very opinionated,” Soltero said. Such was the case with Acompli, which Soltero said had a particular point of view on how the app should look.
That’s fine for a startup, but as Outlook, he said the product needs to have more options to cater to a wider range of users.
Among the new features is the ability to turn conversation view on and off as well as to customize what happens when you swipe left or swipe right.
Microsoft is also taking the preview label off its other Office for Android apps, with the Word, Excel and PowerPoint apps now available as free downloads from the Google Play store. Microsoft had an app version of its Outlook Web Access site, but until now had not had Outlook for either iOS or Android.
Soltero said that the reason Outlook was released with a preview tag is that there is so much diversity among Android devices, requiring somewhat extra testing.
In addition to Microsoft’s own email services, Outlook will support Yahoo, iCloud and Gmail accounts as well as supporting files from online storage companies such as Google, Box and Dropbox.
This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
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