Tuesday, April 11, 2006 11:33 AM
This is a bit more technically-oriented than I normally post here, but bear with me.
Michael Affronti, Microsoft's Outlook Program Manager recently offered some interesting insight into what we can all expect with the next release of Outlook. More importantly, what we can expect from an enterprise management standpoint (i'll explain why I think this is important at the bottom).
For Exchange environments where an admin would like more control over their users RSS experience and its impact on storage and privacy, the following types of settings can be deployed:
Basic functionality: Admins, if they desire, can completely turn off RSS functionality in Outlook 12.
Delivery Location: Admins can easily deploy the setting so that RSS feeds must be delivered to a PST and not the Exchange store. This can eliminate concerns that RSS will severly impact the storage quotas of your users' mailboxes.
Feeds: Admins can now also deploy a set of RSS feeds to users. You can imagine an admin wanting all of their users to have the company's eNewsletter feed and deploying it to the desktop. When deploying feeds, an admin can also control most of the properties for that subscription, including the ability of the user to delete that feed from Outlook.
AutoArchive: At the client level, since RSS in Outlook is just like mail, you can apply and/or deploy custom AutoArchive settings to RSS feed folders. In my case, I've setup AA rules on my RSS feed folders so that items older than 7 days get deleted automatically.
Okay, here's is why this is important. I believe the blawgosphere's missing component is a mass audience of lawyers, corporate executives, media types and other information consumers. Yes, there are many, many people reading blawgs right now. But, not a mass audience. The main reason is that the average person does not have a feed reader installed on their work computer. Especially, in larger enterprises where computers are locked down and only technical administrators are allowed to install a piece of software.
Part of the reticence to move to news readers at large companies and law firms is that enterprise software really needs to be installed and managed from a central location. Newsgator offers a centrally managed product, and companies like Attensa have such products in the works, but by and large, most news readers must be installed locally on each and every computer; which is a serious problem for large, far flung enterprises.
Based on what Michael Affronti is hinting, it sounds like Microsoft is going to change that in the coming year or two. Simply stated, Affronti's posting suggests that Microsoft is focused on enterprise management with regard to RSS. It is one thing for start-ups like those mentioned above to offer an enterprise RSS reader solution; it is another altogether for Microsoft to offer it. Microsoft, via its sheer size and market share, is going to push RSS further faster than any other company could. And, if they are also going to deliver their RSS reader solution as a centrally managed solution, large companies and law firms will be able to better leverage the technology more quickly and efficiently.
What that means for the blawgosphere is the coming of the mass audience it currently lacks. Expect this move to start later this year and pick up steam thereafter. If you think the blawgosphere is hot right now, just wait...
Bill Gratsch, Blawg.org .net .com -- You can syndicate Blawg headlines by clicking either of these icons:
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