The Death of LookOut?

Today Joel on Software went on a minor rampage about Microsoft's acquisition of LookOut. Rampage may be a bit strong, but he is clearly communicating what everyone else is asking: what is the future of Lookout? LookOut is a young and immature Outlook add-in that even despite its youth has won the hearts of many loyal Outlook users.

This last week we learned that Microsoft bought LookOut (yeah for the founders, I love seeing a startup win) and a lot of uncertainty for its future.

Frankly, I will be disappointed if we eventually find out that LookOut won't be incorporated into Outlook until the next version of Office. Clearly people want this today. Now I will say that I've been asked by a lot of people if I know what's going on. I'll just go on record and say I don't know anything. I'm clue-less on this subject.

Joel mentions that it could be that Microsoft acquired LookOut to acquire the talent behind the add-in. If that is the case it be great if MS just turned around and made the add-in an open source project on GDN. Though I'm not holding my breath on that.

LookOut in my opinion did not contain any innovative search technology. Actually in a lot of ways I found it lacking as a search engine. And if all you want is search of Outlook there are other options out there (Examples: x1.com, dtSearch). Not only are there other options but when it comes to brute search they are superior. The one thing that was unique about LookOut is .... it lived in Outlook. Personally I leave Outlook running all day and LookOut is always available. Actually often I'm already in Outlook and don't have to go anywhere else. These other applications require that I start them up. Configure Them. Switch to them and type in my search. Granted this is not hard work. Most people will respond that its a simple task with just a few steps. I think there is a price to paid for context switch required to move to a different application or away from the central area of my work.

This is somewhat like a CPU having to stop mid-stream in some task to switch to another task to let it run then come back to the task it was doing. It can do it fast, but there is a little lost time and a mental shift that requires not losing focus. The brain is fickle. Put a piece of cheese cake in front of it and it will dwell on that piece of cheese cake no matter what else is going on. Loss of context has its penalties.

Yes LookOut was unique for that one reason alone.

I'm optimistic that Microsoft will do the right thing for the Office community. But like everyone else I'm selfishly impatient waiting to hear what that will be.