Windows Phone 7 review: email, calendar and Microsoft Office first look
Microsoft may be aiming Windows Phone 7 at consumers, but there are plenty of features that will appeal to the business user. Sandra Vogel takes a sneak peek at the email, calendar and Office apps included with Microsoft's latest smartphone operating system.

An added advantage of having a Windows Live account is that you can perform some remote security functions that the small businessperson might find handy. You can, for example, locate your handset useful if you've left it somewhere by setting it to ring even if it is currently set on silent or vibrate. These things might help you recover a lost handset. If all else fails, you can remotely lock or wipe the handset, restoring it to its factory settings and thereby protect all your valuable data from prying eyes.
Email has its own tile on the main screen. Email support runs to both personal email accounts and Microsoft Exchange. There are different screens for all, unread, flagged and urgent messages, and you can easily delete individual messages from any list. Lists of messages show the sender's name in large text, then a preview snippet of the message content, with a colour change indicating if you've read a message or not.
Another central activity for enterprise smartphone users is calendar management, and here Microsoft has taken something of a leap forwards. You can have a calendar tile' on the main screen of the handset and this is a double width tile so that it has the space to show some information about upcoming commitments.
Get the ITPro daily newsletter
Sign up today and you will receive a free copy of our Future Focus 2025 report - the leading guidance on AI, cybersecurity and other IT challenges as per 700+ senior executives

Sandra Vogel is a freelance journalist with decades of experience in long-form and explainer content, research papers, case studies, white papers, blogs, books, and hardware reviews. She has contributed to ZDNet, national newspapers and many of the best known technology web sites.
At ITPro, Sandra has contributed articles on artificial intelligence (AI), measures that can be taken to cope with inflation, the telecoms industry, risk management, and C-suite strategies. In the past, Sandra also contributed handset reviews for ITPro and has written for the brand for more than 13 years in total.
-
State-sponsored cyber groups are flocking to the 'ClickFix' social engineering technique
News State-sponsored hackers from North Korea, Iran, and Russia are exploiting the ‘ClickFix’ social engineering technique for the first time – and to great success.
By Emma Woollacott
-
Google hits back at DOJ breakup proposals
News Google has struck back against US regulators, claiming that plans to dismantle the company would "hurt the economy".
By Nicole Kobie
-
Is Outlook down? Microsoft confirms disruption in email client and Teams
News There are reports of service disruptions from users all over Europe
By Ross Kelly
-
Microsoft suffers second global outage in a week
News Tech giant has rolled back another update after it caused further instability with Microsoft 365 services
By Bobby Hellard
-
Outlook rolls out 'Dark Mode' inverted colour scheme due to user demands
News The much-requested feature is only available on one platform, though
By Adam Shepherd
-
Microsoft is killing off its Outlook Web App for Android and iOS
News Users will be encouraged to use the dedicated Outlook app for iOS and Android from April 2018
By Clare Hopping
-
Microsoft brings Sunrise features to mobile Outlook
News Microsoft shut down Sunrise last month, but it lives on in Outlook for Android and iOS
By Nicole Kobie
-
Microsoft Office for Mac Preview
Reviews A new Office for Mac, but is it worth upgrading to?
By Cliff Joseph
-
Microsoft Outlook for iOS review
Reviews iPhones and iPads finally receive a fully functioning Outlook app
By Cliff Joseph
-
Outlook for Mac release date news paves way for complete suite's arrival in 2015
News Mac users could finally be getting updated to Office suite
By Rene Millman