Updated: July 14, 2020 (November 4, 2013)

  Analyst Report Archived

Many Mail Clients Offered, Enterprise Features Vary

My Atlas / Analyst Reports

1,889 wordsTime to read: 10 min
Rob Sanfilippo by
Rob Sanfilippo

Before joining Directions on Microsoft, Rob worked at Microsoft for 14 years where he designed technologies for Microsoft products and... more

Several client applications and Web interfaces from Microsoft provide access to Exchange and other types of e-mail accounts. Outlook 2013 and Outlook Web App (OWA) are typically the most appropriate for enterprise use, although the Modern Mail app and Outlook 2013 RT can be used with work-based Exchange accounts. The Outlook.com service has a Web user interface that employs a design similar to the other clients, although it primarily targets personal use. Organizations should consider client trade-offs such as Exchange support, deployment and maintenance requirements, extensibility, and touch-based device compatibility when choosing which clients to deploy and support.

Outlook Most Exchange-Compatible, OWA Mimics It in Browser

Outlook 2013 provides the most functionality of the messaging clients offered by Microsoft, and it is the only client that supports all features enabled by Exchange 2013. Outlook exposes the most features when connected to an Exchange account using the MAPI protocol, but it can also use IMAP, POP, and ActiveSync to access e-mail services such as Outlook.com, Google Gmail, and Yahoo! Mail. (ActiveSync is a Microsoft protocol for synchronizing a client with an e-mail server. It is supported by Exchange but is also licensed to other companies. IMAP offers advantages over POP, such as support for folder-based e-mail organization.) (See the chart “Microsoft Mail Clients Compared“.)

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