One of the biggest complaints about Windows RT, the version of Windows 8 for ARM processors, is the built-in Mail program. It’s a streamlined email client without the broader features of Microsoft’s full Outlook software.
But Outlook is on the way, according to two reports this week. Paul Thurrott of the Windows Supersite and Mary Jo Foley of ZDNet have both picked up clues that Microsoft is well down the path toward releasing a version of Outlook for Windows RT devices, which would include Microsoft’s own Surface RT tablet.
Thurrott says he ran into two people on the Microsoft campus this week (neither of them Microsoft employees) who were running Outlook on their Surface RT tablets. Foley quotes a source saying that Outlook RT has been a top request from Microsoft’s big business customers, making it a bigger priority for the company.
The release could come this fall, or possibly sooner as part of the Office 365 subscription package, she reports.
No official word from Microsoft on any of this. The big question beyond the Outlook RT release is whether (and when) Microsoft will release the larger Office suite for the iPad, which also uses ARM processors.
