Microsoft continues work to bring different versions of Outlook to parity

Microsoft is continuing to roll out new features for the various versions of Outlook that it offers. The goal remains to bring as much feature parity to all the different Outlook flavors as possible. In pursuit of this Holy Grail, Microsoft made availablesome new features for various Outlook versions and announced general availability of others.Microsoft is positioning these latest Outlook updates as part of its productivity-focused strategy. Microsoft officials said the company aspires to give users more control over their day, which has become even more crucial during the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic. The new features in Outlook, combined with Teams, To Do, My Analytics and other Microsoft 365-branded apps can help users spend less time preparing for meetings, make scheduling easier and more, officials said ina blog posttoday, July 14.Many of the Outlook features Microsoft announced today are not brand-new. Instead, they're new to different versions of Outlook. As many users know, there are a lot of different Microsoft products branded as Outlook -- ranging from Outlook mobile (theformer Acompli apps for iOS and Android), to Outlook for the Web, to the Outlook client used in conjunction with Exchange.Among the features Microsoft highlighted today is the previously announcedMeeting Insights in Outlook, which "brings the email messages and files may be relevant for your meeting right into the event details on your calendar, so you can easily and quickly find what you need." An example of another of the productivity-focused features officials mentioned is the ability to switch between messages and meeting details within a user's inbox. And some of the previously announced new features coming to Cortana also also are part of the Outlook productivity enhancements Microsoft officials are touting.Here's my best attempt at parsing exactly what's new in today's Outlook announcements:

Curiously, the one new Outlook-related productivity feature Microsoft didn't announce officially today is already available to a number of Outlook for the Web users.That feature, which was known during its test phase as "Outlook Spaces,"allows users to pull together their calendar appointments, to-do lists, emails, Sticky Notes, files and documents and other information into a single unified project area. Officials said today they have nothing new to share about this feature.