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.

With the new software by the company, Outlook itself manages to become a social network.

On Wednesday, current users of Office 2003, 2007 and beta versions of Office 2010 can download the new and updated Outlook Social Connector beta.