The Xobni Gadget Platform and Store will use the standards-based set of common APIs (application programming interfaces) for social-networking applications.

By basing the store and platform on Open Social, which was created by Google and is now in the hands of a nonprofit organization, Xobni trusts that the creation of gadget applications that run within Outlook will be easier than has been possible until now.

"We've had [vendors, partners and customers] approaching us forever on this one, desperate. They've tried to develop Outlook plug-ins in the past and it has been nothing but misery," said Xobni CEO Jeff Bonforte.

At launch on Tuesday, the platform and store will have about 20 gadget applications from vendors including Dropbox, Evernote, Google, Cisco's WebEx, Microsoft, Salesforce.com, Yammer, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

By installing these gadgets, end users will be able to access content and capabilities from those services from within Outlook, where many business users spend much of their time.