---
title: "Outlook Desktop Switching to a Web App"
description: "It looks like Microsoft is working to replace native Outlook desktop clients with \"web apps\". This most likely means they'll be using Electron or something similar."
date: 2021-01-06
url: https://krismuniz.com/posts/outlook-web-app
---

# Outlook Desktop Switching to a Web App

From the [Windows Central article](https://www.windowscentral.com/project-monarch-outlook-web-universal-email-client-microsoft):

> Microsoft is building a universal Outlook client for Windows and Mac that will also replace the default Mail & Calendar apps on Windows 10 when ready. [...] The project will deliver Outlook as a single product, with the same user experience and codebase whether that be on Windows or Mac.

This most definitely means they're going to be using something like [Electron](https://electronjs.com).

And who could blame them? For a software product that is expected to run everywhere, having only one desktop client codebase just makes sense.

Shipping features frequently and consistently across platforms is a really complex problem that takes a remarkable level of coordination and engineering discipline. Not everybody can pull it off, and even those who do, still have to deal with big tradeoffs.

For a market as competitive as email, having cross-platform desktop applications that work consistently for every platform can be a huge differentiator. For enterprise customers, this might even be _expected_ of your product (see how many platforms [Slack](https://slack.com/help/articles/115002037526-Minimum-requirements-for-using-Slack) supports).

People often criticize when a big company switches their native clients to Electron, and with good reason. Since the framework bundles apps with its own instance of [Chromium](https://www.chromium.org/Home), Electron apps are usually bloated, glitchy, and resource intensive.

But _even so_, Electron's value proposition is too attractive.

This wouldn't be the first time Microsoft moves a fully native app to Electron, and it certainly won't be the last. They did it with Skype, and were quite successful at it.