Technology giant Microsoft Corp. is taking another significant step towards turning Outlook, the company's desktop e-mail program, into a center for information from popular social networking websites like Facebook and MySpace.

On Wednesday, Microsoft is all set to release a "beta" test version of the Outlook Social Connector. The add-on software, which was first brought to the discussion table in November of 2009, manages add a new pane to the main e-mail reading screen on Outlook, Microsoft's mail client.