Product Description

Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 provides an integrated solution for managing and organizing e-mail messages schedules tasks notes contacts and other information. Outlook 2003 delivers innovations you can use to manage your communications organize your work

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #879 in Software
• Brand: Microsoft
• Model: 543-01904
• Released on: 2003-10-21
• Platforms: Windows 2000, Windows XP
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: .75 pounds

Amazon.co.uk Review
Office Outlook 2003 is an e-mail client and personal information manager, handling contacts, tasks, notes and diary entries. Although it works well as a standalone package, it is also the client for Microsoft Exchange Server, in which case additional features appear. The best thing about Office Outlook 2003 is its integration. For example, from a contact entry you have right-click options for sending e-mails, creating appointments or setting up a task. When you create an e-mail, contacts with e-mail addresses appear as an address book. This kind of integration makes it easier to manage your data. Outlook is also very flexible when it comes to e-mail accounts. You can set up multiple accounts, connecting to POP3, IMAP, Exchange Server or Microsoft’s Hotmail service. Another important feature is the Organize wizard, which makes it easy to create rules that sort mail into different folders. There is also a junk e-mail filter.

There are several important new features in Office Outlook 2003. The most important is to do with how HTML e-mail is rendered. By default, scripts do not run and external content such as images stored on the Internet are not downloaded. This makes Outlook more secure as well as improving performance. If you know the e-mail is safe, you can choose to show all the content. Outlook’s layout has changed, so that e-mails are previewed in a vertical pane. The narrower column is easier to read than before, and it makes better use of available space. Those using Exchange Server benefit from a new offline cache, designed to improve performance, especially over slow Internet connections.

This is the best Outlook yet, although the product still suffers from hidden complexities. It makes good sense as a personal information manager, especially when synchronised with a Pocket PC or Palm PDA, but as a pure e-mail client it is unnecessarily heavyweight. Full marks to Microsoft though for the improved layout and much better e-mail security. --Tim Anderson

Manufacturer's Description
Print less, read more.
Outlook 2003 makes it easier and more comfortable to read e-mail messages online, including long messages. The Reading Pane has been moved to the right side of the screen to display twice as much content and reduce scrolling when you read long messages online.
Save time and find messages faster.
Find e-mail messages more easily by grouping messages by date, size, conversation, subject, importance, or other criteria.
Organize your Inbox.
You no longer have to keep all e-mail messages in your Inbox to remind you of action items. Instead, use Quick Flags to flag messages by priority or time sensitivity and find them in whichever folder they reside.
Prevent junk mail.
The new Junk E-Mail Filter can help you prevent junk e-mail messages from cluttering your Inbox.
Read e-mail messages regardless of the connection.
The new Cached Exchange Mode downloads messages and other Outlook data to your computer so you can remain productive during network downtime. Cached Exchange Mode requires a connection to Exchange Server 2003.
Connection awareness.
Indicate if you have a fast or slow connectionor have Outlook detect it for you. Outlook adapts its performance by displaying either a preview of a message or the full message, depending on the network speed.
Find facts quickly.
No need to leave your e-mail to do researchthe new Research task pane brings electronic dictionaries, thesauruses, and online research sites into Outlook so that you can find information and incorporate it into your messages. Some functionality in the Research task pane requires a connection to the Internet.
Control distribution of sensitive work.
Help protect your company assets by preventing recipients from forwarding, copying, or printing important e-mail messages by using information rights management (IRM) functionality. You can even specify an expiration date for the message, after which it cannot be viewed or otherwise acted upon. IRM functionality requires Microsoft Windows Server 2003 running Microsoft Windows Rights Management Services (RMS).
Work together better.
Save e-mail message attachments to shared workspaces where other team members can get the latest versions, check files in or out, or even save task lists, related files, links, and member lists. You can even tell whether team members are online and then use IM to send them a message. Shared workspaces require Windows Server 2003 running Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services.
Spend less time coordinating schedules.
Access shared team calendars in Outlook and view multiple calendars side by side to make scheduling meetings fast and more convenient. You can view your own work and personal calendars, calendars in Windows SharePoint Services, or the calendars of others who have granted you viewing rights. Sharing team calendars requires Windows Server 2003 running Windows SharePoint Services.
Go mobile.
If you own and use a Tablet PC, you can use ink markup to annotate e-mail messages in your own handwriting with a pen input device. You can write notes for personal use or e-mail messages to send to others.

Customer Reviews

Mr Woods is wrong.
I'm not particulalry a Microsoft Fan but I hate to see them blamed for someone else's mistake.

The previous reviewer should have checked the stated functionality on the Microsoft Web site before buying then he would have known that business contact manager is part of the larger office Suite.

The interface has in fact had a major overhaul and is much faster, there are changes to the way active X and Embedded objects are handled (not run by default) in Emails which have important implications for security and prevention of viruses from junk mail.

Obviously users upgrading from Outlook XP will not see much change in look and feel but it's often the changes under the hood that matter. Anyone running Outlook 2000 or previous versions with a fast enougth PC would benefit more and find this a significant upgrade.

Just get Outlook! - excellent
Exceptional new product (the other parts of Office appear pretty much the same). The Junk Mail filter is excellent, as is the redesign generally. I'd recommend just getting this for your upgrade - but watch the system requirements carefully! I needed an upgrade to some more memory!

Be warned
Yes Outlook 2003 does seem to be superdooper, but be warned, if you haven't got Word 2003 you won' be able to create templates or use Word as your email editor, which is extrmely annoying. Had I known this before I bought Outlook 2003, I would have bought the whole Office upgrade as I now have to buy the Word 2003 upgrade to be able to use Outlook properly - why is microsoft so frustrating??