Microsoft is planning to announce apps and add-ins for Outlook.com later this week. The software giant has started publishing its Build 2015 developers conference schedule a little early, and Outlook.com apps are part of the news. "In under 5 minutes, you can build *one* app, list it in *one* store and have it appear in Outlook.com, Outlook desktop and Office 365," reads a listing for a session on Outlook.com apps.

One app in one store for every version of Outlook

While add-ins and apps are available for the Office 365 version of Outlook, this is the first time Microsoft is planning to bring these to consumers who access Outlook.com. From the listing, it appears that developers will be able to create one single application that runs on Outlook for desktop, Office 365, and Outlook.com, and published in a single store. That sounds a lot better than the current solution, and the result should bring more consumer-friendly apps and services to Outlook.com. At present the only apps for Outlook are focused largely on the enterprise as they only work with the Office 365 version.

Microsoft is also planning to detail its plans for opening up Office as a platform at Build this week, so the apps for Outlook.com are clearly part of that. We’ll be live at Build on Wednesday, and you can read more about what to expect from Microsoft’s most important event of the year right here.