IAR: Is The New Outlook a Threat to E-Mail Marketers?

According to news reports, Outlook 11, which was released in beta in early October, has changed its approach to HTML e-mail. In Outlook's default mode, it will only grab HTML from outside servers when mail is opened, instead of in the preview pane.

This feature is intended to squelch a popular method used by spammers to verify Web addresses. But by doing so, Microsoft could throw e-mail marketers a curve, driving down reported open rates by eliminating HTML viewings in the preview pane for most users.