| There have never been any plans to add news reading to Outlook.

Why not?
I personalley hear and read many people who wonder why there exists outlook
express anyway
if there is outlook.
It is completely logical to gather the two programs together.
This is exactly what is expected from customers I tihink.
So I dont agree or believe your remark.


| There is just no need for it, and Outlook's main customer base does not
want it.

How do we know this?
Did microsoft made a survey and asked thusands of users if they dont want
it?
What is this argument is based on?


Moreover, why outlook 2007 has a RSS reader then? RSS actually had nothing
to do
with the mission of outlook. But as you see, as trends change, things change
and RSS
support is in outlook 2007.
It is completely logical to expect Outlook to support newsgroups given the
fact that
it will support RSS, which has not been in strong demand few years ago.

And! In addition, there are tools which allow people to read news messages
in outlook.
This is a clear indication that there has been a demand in that direction.