OWA is used to access e-mail (including support for S/MIME), calendars, contacts, tasks, and other mailbox content when access to the Microsoft Outlook desktop application is unavailable.
OWA can be used from Internet cafes, home and any other location that provides connectivity to the Web.
In the Exchange 2007 release, OWA also offers read-only access to documents stored in Microsoft SharePoint sites and network (UNC) shares. Outlook Web Access allows users to connect remotely via a web browser.
Functionality of the OWA is partly bundled with the use of a Microsoft client operating system and the Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE). The OWA interface is available in two options.
- "Premium" user interface is rendered for Internet Explorer 5 and Internet Explorer 6 SP1 and later for the 2007 release.
- "Basic" user interface (UI) is rendered for other browsers.
The first component to allow client-side scripts to issue HTTP requests (XMLHTTP) was originally written by the Outlook Web Access team. It soon became a part of Internet Explorer 5.0. Renamed XmlHttpRequest and standardized by the World Wide Web Consortium, it has since become one of the cornerstones of the Ajax technology used to build advanced web applications.
