It took many weeks and repeated public shaming but Microsoft has finally fixed the social connectors link in Outlook 2013.
The ‘Connect to another social network’ link now works – well sort of.
Microsoft’s problem, and the reason why the link went to a ‘Page not found’ error, was the lack of social connectors. Redmond had high hopes for a range of external connectors into Outlook but there were few takers. Even Microsoft’s own Skype product would not use the social connector system and took an entirely different path.
That left LinkedIn as the only social connector available, until even LinkedIn dropped their main support for Outlook social connectors (in March 2015).
Now there’s just a LinkedIn connector for some Outlook 2013 users. The connector only works if you have an Office 365 mailbox or an Exchange Server 2013 ‘on-premises’ connection.
This is the page you now get when you click on the Outlook 2013 link. It’s just a page describing the limited LinkedIn support.
It’s probably quite confusing to anyone expecting to see a list of Outlook social connectors. But Microsoft prefers customers to be confused other the alternative – corporate embarrassment at a failed policy.
