In mid-July, Microsoft announced that the new Outlook email app for Windows would become generally available for commercial users on August 1. That date has indeed arrived, and with it, Microsoft has declared that the new Outlook Windows app has hit the GA level for businesses.
In a blog post, Microsoft repeated what it stated a few weeks ago about the status of the new Outlook for Windows for businesses. While it has reached the GA stage, it will remain an opt-in experience for companies who would prefer to use the now "classic" Outlook Windows app. However, businesses who do switch to the new Outlook Windows app will be able to get full support from Microsoft now that it has been labeled as generally available.
The blog post added:
This GA milestone will enable more organizations to start their migration process. We will continue to make feature improvements and monitor feedback, so continue to try the new experience and let us know what you want to see next!
Microsoft stated what it says are some of the advantages that businesses could get from using the new Outlook for Windows. In a survey of its customers conducted by the third-party organization Forrester Consulting, Microsoft stated that users of the new Outlook Windows app expect to cut down its support tickets by 65 percent compared to using the "classic" Outlook Windows app. The survey also showed that customers expect to reduce both its energy and storage costs by 27 percent with the use of the new Outlook Windows app.
The next phase in the transition from the "classic" app to the new app for businesses will be when Microsoft makes switching to the new Outlook app an "opt-out" experience. There"s no word on when that will happen, but the company says it will give businesses advanced notice of that stage 12 months before it actually occurs.