Microsoft Outlook and SharePoint are available as modules on Chrome's New Tab page. Could Teams be next?
The modules are not live in Chrome Canary.
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After Google announced that it’s releasing a native ARM Chrome browser for Windows, a few days ago, the tech giant is taking even more steps to offer further integration of its browser with Microsoft apps.
This time we’re talking about Outlook and SharePoint, and according to tech enthusiast @Leopeva64, they will be available as modules on Chrome’s New Tab page, allowing users to quickly access them.
Both platforms can accessed on the New Tab page in Chrome on Windows, Linux, Mac, Chrome OS, Fuchsia, and Lacros, according to the flags, and, fortunately, they are optional, as users can enable/disable them at will.
For now, the modules are gradually rolling out to Chrome Canary users, and they will be generally available in the next weeks when the stable version gets updated.
The modules will most likely open up Outlook for Web, and SharePoint for Web, and users will be able to work on the platforms from Chrome. It’s interesting given that both Outlook and SharePoint are Microsoft 365 apps, so this means more modules from this productivity suite are coming.
We wouldn’t mind a Word, Excel, and PowerPoint module, and maybe even a Microsoft Teams module for Chrome. Even though Edge supports them better (and many would say the browser is even superior to Chrome), Chrome is still the most popular browser, by far. However, Edge is coming in second place, and it’s rising in popularity.
However, since they’re both Chromium-based browsers, their capabilities, features, and even vulnerabilities will be similar, down the road. For instance, both Edge and Chrome are currently experiencing a critical vulnerability, and users should update their browsers as soon as possible.
Ultimately, it will be possible for Google to update Chrome to support more Microsoft 365 apps because it has the technical architecture to do so. But it will be down to how much the tech company wants to prioritize the productivity suite of a competitor rather than its own.
What are your thoughts on this?