Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Opening Outlook's PST Format
protosage writes to tell us that Microsoft Interoperability is working towards opening up Outlook's .pst format under their Open Specification Promise. This should "allow anyone to implement the .pst file format on any platform and in any tool, without concerns about patents, and without the need to contact Microsoft in any way." "In order to facilitate interoperability and enable customers and vendors to access the data in .pst files on a variety of platforms, we will be releasing documentation for the .pst file format. This will allow developers to read, create, and interoperate with the data in .pst files in server and client scenarios using the programming language and platform of their choice. The technical documentation will detail how the data is stored, along with guidance for accessing that data from other software applications. It also will highlight the structure of the .pst file, provide details like how to navigate the folder hierarchy, and explain how to access the individual data objects and properties."
Its good to see Microfsoft open up the Outlook PST format, if only to improve importing into other mail clients like Thunderbird etc.
But honestly, using the PST format in other applications sounds like a terrible idea to me: Those monolithic PST files, which Outlook uses to store mail data get corrupted easily (at least in my experience) and storing all your email data in one gigantic file always struck me as a really bad design choice anyway.
I think it is much more likely the reason is (4).
(4) As standards committees and governments adopt open formats, Outlook is at risk of being rejected for the closed format. Opening the format ensures the benefits of the Outlook/exchange server will remain the industry standard in software and support purchases. Like IE, expect some features to simply work better on an Exchange Server with Outlook on Windows while unsupported applications on a foreign OS may have random errors and glitches.
The truth shall set you free!
Their motive is probably to make money, like always -- and like any business. Even RedHat. Sure, RH may employ kernel devs, Gnome devs, etc., but at the end of the day its just to make the system that they sell better.
Opening PST means being able to more freely move Outlook data between mail programs such as Evolution. The more interoperable the mail client is, the less it matters if all your engineers are on Linux and all your marketers are on Windows, as this is likely just a step towards being able to have say, Evolution, fully support being able to talk with an Exchange server. If you can get all of the features of Exchange across platforms at the expense of opening specs of a mail client that they don't really make that much money off of anyway, then they'll likely be able to make some more sales of Exchange server.
From a purely technical point of view, that may or may not be optimal, but if every part of the business could tie in with the Exchange server regardless of what operating system they need to run for the rest of their tasks, then it makes it all the more attractive from a business standpoint.
I could just be off base though, but it seems like that is a possible eventuality. This just has to do with data storage I think, but even being able to import contact lists, mail boxes, etc, more smoothly is a good start, I'd say.
Well.. um.. the first one shows that we don't care, and the second one shows that we would figure it out if we wanted it.
Never trust an atom. They make up everything.
Its not a standard. Its just documentation about an internally developped format that was never fully documented before so that the european union finally shuts the hell up. Nothing more. If people find it useful, so much the better.
Our central IT dept gives us something like 100MB of quota on the Exchange server. Running out of quota? The official advice is 'save your stuff in a PST file'.
Of course you can't save your PST on the IT dept-supplied backed-up network drive because MS say "don't do that". So people end up with PST files on unbacked-up local storage on a particular machine...
Let me add another reason:
(5) They don't care about the outlook format because Sharepoint is the new closed format. They don't care if your outlook mailboxes (or .doc or anything else) is in an open format because you put it all in sharepoint. You still can read your mailbox with another program, but because the "metadata" of your IT infrastructure (which isn't a single file, but a lot of files with owners and relationships between all them) is stored in sharepoint you're tied to it for the eternity. This is a brilliant move - Microsoft can convice governments that their outlook and office and all their apps are using open formats, but no government will ask about the openness of sharepoint because it's not an application that reads some kind of document.
I think a much better idea would be to rewrite Outlook to use a real database as a backend. They already have SQL Server. Why not just store all your mail in a SQL Server database? You wouldn't have problems with maximum file sizes. You would have much better scalability for those with gigabytes of email, and you could have a common interface working with the data in the terms of running SQL queries. I don't know why no other email client like thunderbird wouldn't do the same. Make it easy to access your email store, and you could easily write tons of applications to access your email.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
I thought that, until I joined an organisation that used Lotus Notes.
PST oh how I miss thee.
Sara
Designer, Gamer, Macgrrl in an XP World
"Data portability has become an increasing need for our customers and partners as more information is stored and shared in digital formats. One scenario that has come up recently is how to further improve platform-independent access to email, calendar, contacts, and other data generated by Microsoft Outlook.
As a linux mail admin, I'm excited that there may soon be a possibility for Dovecot to deliver mail directly into a 2 GB .pst file sitting on my mail server because the PST format*snort* is so*choke* superior to maildHAHAHAHAHA! Sorry--I couldn't keep a straight face.
There's no place like
It's precisely because .pst doesn't matter that much, but the client-server protocol does, that MS is opening.... the .pst format, not the protocol.
You'll be able to manipulate the data locally, but as soon as you want to send it to or from the server, you'll need exchange/outlook.
nothing to see.
The Cloud - because you don't care if your apps and data are up in the air.