Microsoft opens more protocol specifications
As I just have read, Microsoft has released more specifications under its Open Protocol Specifications program. I browsed a bit through it and recognized that it now also contains specifications on protocols between Exchange and Outlook. It may very well be that I'm wrong here but if this means that now the whole communication between Outlook clients and Exchange servers is documented and freely available, I guess it will now be just a matter of time until many of our beloved mail clients will not only be able to use IMAP/POP3/SMTP as the protocols to talk to MS Exchange but use the custom/propietary protocol/API for accessing the mail servers. Also, groupware and calendar applications will be able to integrate with the excellent organisation-features (appointments, people availability, address completion, etc.) of exchange into their software.
I really hope, that my interpretation of the things I saw so far is true...