Microsoft: Outlook's not broken and we aren't 'fixing' it
Summary: There are still more than a few Outlook users who are hoping against hope that an online campaign might result in Microsoft backtracking with Outlook 2010 and going back to HTML rendering as the default in its e-mail program. Microsoft's response: Outlook isn't broken and Outlook 2010 will include the Word rendering engine, just like Outlook 2007 does.
Microsoft's decision to change the rendering engine in its Outlook mail client from HTML to the Word rendering engine back in 2007 wasn't one of its most popular moves. In fact, there are still more than a few Outlook users who are hoping against hope that an online campaign might result in Microsoft backtracking with Outlook 2010 and going back to HTML rendering.
Microsoft's response: Outlook isn't broken and Outlook 2010 will include the Word rendering engine, just like Outlook 2007 does.
The Outlook team posted its response to the Twitter-based campaign designed to convince the company to go back to the HTML rendering default on the Outlook Team blog on June 24. From that post:
"First, while we don’t yet have a broadly-available beta version of Microsoft Office 2010, we can confirm that Outlook 2010 does use Word 2010 for composing and displaying e-mail, just as it did in Office 2007. We’ve made the decision to continue to use Word for creating e-mail messages because we believe it’s the best e-mail authoring experience around, with rich tools that our Word customers have enjoyed for over 25 years. Our customers enjoy using a familiar and powerful tool for creating e-mail, just as they do for creating documents. Word enables Outlook customers to write professional-looking and visually stunning e-mail messages."
The post, authored by William Kennedy. Corporate Vice President of the Office Communications and Forms Team, goes on to say that there is no consensus in the industry around which subset of HTML would be appropriate for e-mail. He blogged:
"There is no widely-recognized consensus in the industry about what subset of HTML is appropriate for use in e-mail for interoperability. The 'Email Standards Project' does not represent a sanctioned standard or an industry consensus in this area. Should such a consensus arise, we will of course work with other e-mail vendors to provide rich support in our products."
Microsoft reiterated the reasons it moved from HTML to Word for e-mail rendering in athis white paper.
What do you say, Outlook users? Do you think Microsoft is right in sticking with Word as the default e-mail rendering engine for Outlook 2010?
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Talkback
the Customer, the Choice! or NOT!
AndyG.
Ha ha ha
I don't know what is about Microsoft bashers that makes them treat them unlike any other manufacturer on the planet. Did you even think that if Microsoft did want to make the rendering engine replaceable/interchangeable how much that would cost in development and ultimately the user?
It will probably surprise you but there are amazingly few customers who actually WANT a choice when it comes to stuff like this. They want the best user experience at the lowest cost (dollars and bother) and that's what they get with Outlook.
This is the same "I only use 10% of the features" argument...tell me, are you the one who gets to decide "which" 10% stay?
I thought so.
If Microsoft said it's not broken, then it's not broken.
Kind of like an Apple computer...
Its not broken...its a feature.
Would have been nice to point out Gmail and Notes do this also
"Outlook isn't the only e-mail program Greiner criticizes for going against accepted HTML standards.
Google's Gmail, IBM's Lotus Notes 8 and Windows Live Hotmail, Microsoft's consumer Web mail service, all display HTML e-mails poorly, Greiner said.
A Google spokeswoman said in an e-mail that "[Google is] always looking to improve the way Gmail works, but we don't have anything new to announce regarding HTML support." IBM did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Greiner said he is singling out Outlook because of its No. 1 position in the market. "If Microsoft can shift to a standards-based approach for Outlook 2010, you'll see a lot more pressure on other e-mail clients to follow suit," he wrote yesterday (Australia time).
if is a popular software then critic it.
Market
I have never nor will ever use a microsoft product... my best interest is not valued nor cared about by any corporation.
MetaPhaze: If You Have No Need for Microsoft Product
re: religeous[sic] people
I don't use outlook at home (other than to store addresses to transfer to/from my phone), but I do at work. It does what it's supposed to do. 10 years ago, I used Agent.
I don'[t get the entire I'll never use company X's product, unless your point is that you only support free software.
Outlook's not broken....
If our office approves it, I will switch back to '03 in a heartbeat.
if it's not broken ... it's "F.A.D."
Fine, from the MS point of view it "is not broken". At the same time, from the user point of view it could "be broken" because it doesn't work as they expect. For example, those expectations could be from experience with other applications, or earlier versions of the "broke" app. So, from the user point of view I call the program "F.A.D", "Failing As Designed". In a FAD situation the program is doing what the programmer told it to do (as programmed) but not what the USER is expecting it to do.
The concept of "broke" is all too much mis-used and mis-understood in computing because "ain't broke" and more importantly the exact parameters that define "broke" are not always clearly defined and AGREED upon by programmers AND users. Programmer looks at it and says it "ain't broke" because it gives the "right" answer. The user looks at it and says "I don't care if it gives the 'right' answer, it 'IS BROKE!' (very vehemently) because ... "
- it takes me a dozen "extra" steps compared to "package x"!
- it makes me "stand on my head" to make it work!
- it takes x hours to complete!
- it doesn't display the HTML the same way I see it in the browser of my choice!
- I can't figure out how the **** you got it to give the right answer, it is too complicated for me!
In computing, a complimentary concept to MS saying "it is not broke" is the phrase
[b][i]"If it ain't broke, DON'T fix it!" [/b][/i]
The phrase leaves unsaid the idea that if you try to 'fix' it you could introduce a new / real "broke".
To restate, the real problem is that most of the time there are not clear definitions of "Broke" / "Ain't Broke" that are AGREED upon by programmers AND users.
The "10% features" argument works against MS here..
Tell the customers who can't render the emails that were perfectly fine before they "upgraded" that this is a result of them having been provided with the "best user experience". Your straw man argument regarding the '"which" 10% [of the features] stay?" is literally laughable, since what is being discussed is Microsoft's unilateral decision to do exactly that. Since you think it's bad for anyone else to make that choice, why are you giving Microsoft a pass on the exact same mistake?
Look, they can trot out the "user experience" canard all they like, but it's apparent to many analysts that Outlook 2007's HTML rendering was deliberately broken in response (at least in part) to the many security issues that existed with IE, and the fact that an easy way to hack a user's box has historically been to send him an IE exploit delivered in an email. They started moving in this direction with Outlook 2003, and this just completed the journey. So to make up for their broken browser, Microsoft broke their email client.
Given this track record, if Microsoft offered auto maintenance and you broke an axle, they'd just remove all the tires and tell you to rent out your car as an apartment. They'd say it's not a defect, it's a feature. It's lucky for us that Ford is selling the cars and not Microsoft.
Backwards commentary doesn't work.
" '"which" 10% [of the features] stay?" is literally laughable, since what is being discussed is Microsoft's unilateral decision to do exactly that"
Ummm...how wrong is that comment, can you guess? The math is grade 3. The logic is simple. Microsoft decides on 100% of the features in all its products; not 10%.
The point is, if the features are going to be reduced by 90%, who decides? Well in the end it would be MS that decides that too, even if it involved suggestions from the public.
Oh! Also, sorry if your copy of IE is broken. I have had many copies and still have several between home and work, and all mine run fine. As a matter of fact, all the copies of IE my friends and family use work fine as well, so..I'm not sure what happened with yours. Wait a second, all the computers at work have IE and they work to! And now that I think of it, I have know hundreds of Windows users and IE worked for all of them...something fishy is going on here...
Either you got the only broken copy of IE I have ever heard of or maybe you don't even use IE and you are a liar.
What is it with these jokers who post here like nobody out there in the world has experience with Windows and they can say any garbage they want and people will believe it. If you like Linux or OSX then fine, thats nice, I applaud the fact you found an OS that you like better and works better for your purposes, but its a long long long time past making bogus half assed statements like Windows is broken, IE is broken, Outlook is broken.
I know dozens of computer users who are just Joe Average users with no significant computer savvy knowledge at all and they have all proved quite capable of installing free anti virus and how to set up their Windows based machine and run it without a hitch for years. Sorry to tell you thats not broken, thats efficient and satisfying. If you cannot figure out how to secure and operate a Windows based machine with ease then your basically admitting you really cant operate the worlds easiest user friendly OS in the world, and that just to bad for you; its hard to figure why such a person would even be posting on an IT website, other then to spread FUD.
You don't get the math...
The original numbers were that most users use %10 percent of the features, and who decide which %10 percent stays, since everyone's using a different %10
Of course Microsoft chooses %100 percent of the features that go into the software... but they don't choose %100 percent of the %10 percent that YOU use from the previous version. So what's being said is that MS is taking away features some people use, for whatever reason.
So, before you tirade about other people's intellect, evaluate the conversation.
My opinion: Outlook's rendering is a headache for eMail permission marketing initiatives from a development perspective... just like the rest of the product's they have which never fall in line with standards. They presume that they can use their market share to dictate limitations on how EVERYTHING is done, and what they actually end up with is a limited user-experience.
So take your own advice and stop using backwards reasoning.
You're only re-iterating the "frack you, users; it's my way or the highway" attitude that people are complaining about.
We're talking about features that existed in prior versions of Outlook. Features that are used by many users. Your logic is that, because those features no longer appear in the 100% of the features [i]that do appear in the current product,[/i] they just don't count.
As I said, laughable, but your reaction is exactly what I'd expect from somebody who limits himself to 3rd grade math.
As for broken IE... those Joe Average users are the ones who pay my mortgage. They install their own antivirus; sure: they also install Antivirus XP and a host of other malware that present itself through their browsers and email clients. Prior versions of IE was rife with security issues, and simply pretending that these issues never existed (as you do) doesn't invalidate them or earn you any imagined debating points. Go back and re-read my message, paying close attention to tense, as when I say "historically" and "existed", etc. Try to respond to what I said instead of what you wish I said.
What makes Microsoft's refusal to restore the use of MSIE to render emails is particularly onerous is that the issues to which they were originally responding no longer exist (or are less prevalent) in the current browser. There's no technical reason for not simply providing what they did before.
You can proffer all kinds of reasons as to why they're sticking with Word, ranging from a face value acceptance of their argument that it's a "better user experience" even in the face of mounting customer complaints; to conspiratorial thinking about using their leverage to depreciate the features that distinguish their competitors... but the plain fact of the matter is that Microsoft flatly refuses to respond to their customers' reasonable requests. That alone is reason to kvetch.
Less On
Really? None?
What are e-mail clients missing and why wouldn't MS just use Trident (IE7/8) to render? Composition is another matter, but rendering should be dead simple.
Check your facts
viewing. Both are compliant with HTML 4, and they both produce valid
HTML that can be saved to a file and directly viewed in any browser.
So there are at least two prominent examples that contradict your claim
about no email client being 100% HTML compliant.
Unless of course by "HTML" you mean "some random mess of HTML tags
and IE-specific misfeatures that only render correctly in IE 6". Then all
bets are off because not even IE 7 can get that right.
I already did
Look at the Thunderbird column, please.
Microsoft does a lot of good stuff. Today I'm bashing their specific decisions in this specific case.
FWIW, Lotus Notes is the absolute worst on that list. While I like Notes as a development platform, as an email client it deserves every bit of criticism it gets. But the topic here is "Microsoft: Outlook's not broken and we aren't 'fixing' it."
That's just about the dumbest analogy I've ever read online. !