Apple embraces S+S architecture – Mobile Me. p/s: and they have OBA too!

Apple introduces Mobile Me, a cloud service with email, calendar, contacts as well as file management service that is similar to Microsoft’s Windows Live platform; think Hotmail (now Live Mail) + Live Folder (aka Sky Drive). On top of a web interface like most SaaS model out there, Apple also seems to embraces Microsoft’s Software + Service vision by having software (or client applications) running on Windows PC, Mac or IPhone that can connect to Mobile Me  services. For Windows PC, the default client used by Apple is Outlook which also based on the Office Business Applications (OBA) architecture.

Customers got to pay USD99 to USD149 per year based on the number of users and storage size and there is no free account like Live . Apple also known Mobile Me as Exchange for the rest of us, but from my perspective Microsoft has already got ‘Exchange for the rest of us’ via the Live platform.

S+S with Outlook 2003

While I am helping Tang to do a S+S Outlook addin, his customer is looking at integration with a back end database and also simple workflow.

Developing such an addin for Outlook 2007 would have easy with the Outlook 2007 S+S blueprint but the customer still running Outlook 2003. Late last night I managed to dig thru MSDN and found an article showing me just how to do it with Outlook 2003 and Visual Studio Tools for Office. http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa537181.aspx

 

As per screenshot above, it shows you how to add a custom command bar into Outlook, and also how to trigger Windows Form from Outlook. But the cool thing here is the sample showing you how to create a custom folder under Inbox showing your own set of data. While not as slick as what you can do in Outlook 2007, it is good enough for most people out there. 🙂

Office Developer Conference ’08 contents now online

The slides from ODC 2008 are made available on the OBA Central website.

The slides are categorized into a few categories:

• Architecture (those planning a full scale deployment of OBA should read this!)
• Client (incl. coverage of some lesser know product for OBA i.e. Access & Groove)
• Executive
• Server (ala SharePoint, look out for stuffs on BI and Authentication)
• Services (SOA & S+S)

One of the cool thing I saw from the slides is a 3d Silverlight webpart for Plant Floor OBA RAP (pic below).

http://www.obacentral.com/ODC

Office Live Workspace available worldwide

Microsoft just launch the beta version of Office Live Workspace after allowing pre-registration for US based customers few months ago. Good news is this time it is available worldwide. Goto this URL to sign in using your Windows Live/ Hotmail ID http://workspace.office.live.com/

Upon signing in you will get a screen as below, notice that there is an ‘Install Office Add-in’ button. This is a less than 1Mb .msi file download which gives you integration on Word, Excel and PowerPoint.

I look at Office Live Workspace as a online extension of the Office client. There is a personal document library for you which you also can share with other people. Then for Outlook you can synchronize your tasks, appointments, contacts and even notes on your workspace.

On the help file it stated that the integration is available for Office 2003 and XP as well. Cool, FREE new features for older version of Office product. How many vendor does that?

Integration with Office 2003

Integration with Office 2007

Make Outlook even better!!

Outlook 2007 sits on my desktop all the time and it is really a great application inside the Office suite. Now one startup from California makes it even better, checkout the YouTube video here from xobni (reversal of the word ‘inbox’).