Microsoft Will Now Be Opening The .PST Format Of Outlook

28th October 2009

The Interoperability team of the Microsoft Office has announced on Monday that it would also be making the Outook .PST file format to store emails, the calendar entries, and also the contacts that will be accessible to the third party developers. This move means that the other softwares, which are on both the client side and on the server side, will be accessing as well as manipulating the data using any of the programming language.

It will also be meaning that the actual program of Outlook, which is a part of the Microsoft Office suite of the productivity software, will not be installed. The team is intending to fully document the way how data is actually stored, how to access the data, and also the actual structure of the PST files.

It is also worth noting that the Microsoft Corp. has merely stated the intent of the company to open the PST format, and has not provided any timeframe in which the company would be doing so.

As a result of the Microsoft's Interoperability Principles, which were announced in early year of 2008, this move seemed to be designed for broadening the audience for the Outlook/Exchange, although it does not require Outlook to be installed for using this format as it would reduce the demand for the purchased copies of the particular software.