Lookout – Gone…

According to Joel on Software, Lookout has removed their software from their Web Site. This is a horrible thing to say since I am loving their outlook tool. Since the story broke a few days back, everyone it seems has been linking to their software. But things get a bit icky when you look below the surface. You see, aparently the software uses the Apache Lucene.NET Full Text Retrieval Engine. which is written in Java.

OOps. That means that microsoft cannot sell that part of it. I dont think there are any issues that are really big actually selling it as Lookout used to actually sell it. But this is embarrasing, since Apache is the mortal enemy of Microsoft with the IIS Web Server.

Joel has suggested that this is a grab for the people working on the project to assist with the MSN search engine. The real question is why? Why would microsoft go buy a company just for that when there are lots of people with more experience. Or are there? Since white slavery is illegal, even in Redmond, there must be some inducments for the key players to stay with the company.

None of that solves the problem of course of the lack of download of Lookout. That we can fix here. You can download it from us at Radioactive Networks for non-commercial use on the basis that the product is not available at the moment.

With any luck it will soon be back ready for downloads.