Whatever you may think of Microsoft, you have to admit that the company learns from its mistakes. Which is a good thing, because it makes so many. Consider Outlook, the do-it-all information manager with integrated e-mail, calendar, address book, and to-do list. The original release, which was shipped with Office 97, was a bloated dog that slowed computers to a crawl and drove users crazy with bugs. Microsoft listened to complaints, and Outlook 98 -- now available for downloading free--is a slick programme indeed. It's lean, fast and easy to use.

The best thing about Outlook 98 is how it effortlessly integrates its various parts. Let's say you start your day by reading E-mail from Anamika Verma. With two clicks of the mouse, you call up her file in your contact list, where you notice that her birthday is a couple of weeks away. Two more mouseclicks, and your phone--if it's connected to your PC -- is dialling Anamika's.

A few minutes later, after you and Anamika have set up a lunch to celebrate her birthday and discuss a business deal, you type in a quick note and pop the appointment into your calendar. Two months later, when you are finalising the fabulous deal you cooked up over lunch, you can call up a history showing every contact you and Anamika ever had, and every document you exchanged.

At the heart of Outlook 98 is a terrific E-mail programme that displays a list of messages in a panel atop your screen, a list of folders for organising your messages on the left side, and the contents of each message in a panel at the bottom.

It's easy to sort messages by sender, subject, or date. All you do is to click on the appropriate field at the top of the list. Organising messages from particular people or on specific subjects or projects is also a breeze. Simply set up a folder and drag over a message's subject folder.

Outlook 98 also makesit a snap to filter and organise mail as it arrives. You can have junk mail sent directly to the trash bin. More important, mail from the boss can be flagged with a high priority item and sent directly to a ``Boss'' folder. You can even have a warning box pop up to alert you every time His Eminence sends a message. And if you leave a priority message unread, Outlook will nag you till you give the once over.

When you get mail from a new correspondent, adding the sender to your list takes just two mouse clicks. The contact manager is far more than just names and E-mail addresses; it's a complete database that records home and business addresses, phone numbers, fax numbers, birthdays, anniversaries, spouses' names, and a variety of other information.

Outlook 98's calendar, to-do list, and scheduling programmes are compatible with most E-mail programmes and directories, but be careful. Very careful. When a couple of my friends installed Outlook 98 on their PCs at work, it not only refused to run but alsotrashed their versions of Lotus cc:Mail. The information systems department was not amused. They're still not amused. So be smart and check with you administrator before trying Outlook 98 at the office.

Some people will find Outlook 98 suffers from features overkill. If you learn everything there is to know about the programme, you are probably wasting time that you spend doing what you are paid to do. But that's a management problem, not a software glitch. Overall, Microsoft has really delivered with this version of Outlook 98.

Through the end of July, you can download Outlook 98 at no charge from Microsoft at www.microsoft.com/outlook. The files are so large, however, that they can take forever to download. Dial-up Internet users might like to pony up $14.95 and order the CD version online. After July 31, Outlook 98 will be available only to registered users of Office 97, Outlook 97, or Exchange server.