ZDNet UK - News - Microsoft abandons Outlook Express : "Microsoft will not do any more development work on the world's most popular email client

It might be the world's most widely distributed email client, but Microsoft has confirmed that it has no intention of further developing Outlook Express.

'[Outlook Express] just sits where it is,' said Dan Leach, lead product manager for Microsoft's information worker product management group. 'The technology doesn't go away, but no new work is being done. It is consumer email in an early iteration, and our investment in the consumer space is now focused around Hotmail and MSN. That's where we're putting the emphasis in terms of new investment and new development work.' "

Let's see...there used to be a market for email clients. Microsoft started giving away Outlook Express, which forced everybody else to give away their mail clients (not to mention grabbing a lot of market share). Now they're hoping people will move to (and pay for) the full version of Outlook. I'm sure there's a word to describe this sort of strategy. It's right on the tip of my tongue. Seems like it starts with an "m".