A colleague alerted me to the announcement that Microsoft claim to be readying the release of information explaining how the PST mail file format works. Its strange that at a recent IBM workshop I had wondered if there would ever be a non Microsoft native email client to challenge Outlook – then lo and behold this comes along. So far there has been a lot of comment on this development and I think the following article from which I’ve quoted gives the best overview of this landmark announcement.
http://windowsitpro.com/article/articleid/103036/microsoft-opens-up-pst-for-business.html
So Microsoft will provide documentation so that any third-party vendor can recreate the PST format on other platforms, for free and without fear of recourse, and interoperate with PST files more seamlessly. The potential results of this transformation are far-reaching. For example, imagine Google email servers that interoperate directly with PST file stores on Windows PCs, Macs, or Linux boxes. Or third-party email solutions that can take an existing PST file and make the migration to a new solution easier than ever before.