
Microsoft: Outlook is Not “Broken” - FluidDjango
http://technologizer.com/2009/06/24/microsoft-outlook-is-not-broken/
======
TomOfTTB
"Word enables Outlook customers to write professional-looking and visually
stunning e-mail messages"

As long as they're sending the e-mail to someone who also has Outlook and who
isn't using the Outlook Web Access on their exchange server :)

Seriously though Microsoft's obviously trying to shift the issue to Outlook's
use of Word when really the issue is how bad their Word engine renders HTML
(though I do think "fixoutlook.org" picked the very worst example for their
comparison). It's a good way to win an argument but a bad way to take product
suggestions.

~~~
edave
Someone once aptly described to me how Microsoft handles standards as "they
take a normal, rational standard that everyone agrees upon, then they screw it
up just enough that only their products will work with it."

To be fair- GMail doesn't display background colors either.

~~~
antidaily
Huh. I've had pretty good luck with Gmail and background colors. Maybe because
I use tables.

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bitwize
Combining e-mail and calendaring, and integrating it with the rest of the
Office Suite was a masterstroke on Microsoft's part. It has streamlined office
communication to the point where even shops where development is done on Linux
machines have Exchange servers handling company email and I get funny looks
from people who ask me, "That meeting didn't show up on your Outlook?"

Outlook is broken only if you give a shit about openness or standards. Most
people don't. Most people want to solve the problems immediately before them
to make their lives easier. This Outlook achieves with aplomb.

------
snprbob86
The primary source was posted 10 hours ago. Please up vote that instead of
this blog spam:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=672745>

~~~
TomOfTTB
I think the term Blog Spam refers to people who post their own Blog's posts. I
don't see any obvious affliation between this user and the site they linked
to.

Moreover the merit of this piece is that it's a short synopsis of the entire
story. You can think the article you link to has more validity as the original
source and it's your choice to vote that one up and not this one. But it's
kind of rude to call this post names simply because you deem it unworthy.

~~~
snprbob86
I've always used the term "blog spam", with respect to social link
aggregators, to indicate a blog post which adds no apparent value to the
source it is citing. I feel that is true in this case.

Furthermore, I think that this blog is unfairly omitting details from the
source material. The official blog post includes significant details about the
editing experience of Microsoft Word. The quote in the intermediate blog post
does not capture the nature of the Outlook team's argument.

Even if the intermediate post did represent the argument accurately, it
includes editorialization which I'd rather see in comments.

Both HN submissions used the official title, as they are supposed to. I posit
that this secondary source was upvoted more because of the more dramatic
title. The posters are to blame for the discrepancy, not the HN submitters. My
apologies for the meta-discussion, but I don't think I'm the only person who
doesn't like intermediate, no-value-added blog posts.

~~~
TomOfTTB
I think the only thing I can say is that I don't necessarily question your
logic. It seems sound. And I personally have no problem with the meta-
discussion (though who am I to say either way).

My only counter point is that your opinion is worth your one up vote which you
most certainly shouldn't give to this post.

Put another way I don't see any paticular problem with you posting a link to
the original submission. My only issue was the indication that the person who
submitted this story was guilty of wrong doing (again I think the brevity of
the article does add value so I don't think it would count as blog spam even
under your definition).

------
philjackson
I really wish no one had ever thought of putting HTML into an email in the
first place.

~~~
TwoBit
While elaborate spam email is annoying, you don't really believe we should all
be using plain text, do you?

~~~
rjurney
I believe that we should all be using plaintext for email. Plaintext and
simple attachments. So MIME. But not HTML.

~~~
buro9
Basic HTML is nice, and that is what should have been supported in email.

Just for things like headings and bullet points.

I can very happily live without tables (attach a spreadsheet if it is
important), css (let the text of my email be dictated by my client) and images
(again, attach).

But the need for headings and lists means that I do use HTML or Rich-Text
(depending on the client) when it's available even though I seldom use
anything beyond simple formatting.

Oh, and we use RT as a help desk/support software, and that uses plain text.
And I speak from experience that when you get a lengthy description of an
issue turned into plain text it's very difficult to read. Headings and bullet
points are pretty important.

~~~
rw
Then use Markdown. HTML is overkill.

~~~
wizard_2
It's a little late for that no? HTML is already supported on almost every
email client. And while I'm annoyed at every one liner email that's using html
for text colors and backgrounds, there are very nice looking things you can do
with html (duh) and I'm all for not limiting email communication to be plain
text.

Our email system is outdated and kludgey, people try to use it for file
transfers, document management, instant messaging, photo sharing, etc. Spam is
constantly an annoyance that despite wonderful filtering, probably can't be
designed out of smtp. There's no easy way to have verifications of sender
identity, or even have control over who's allowed to send mail for your
domain. (domain keys, and spf records work, but most mail server will accept
your mail anyway - We had a dns/ip change forced upon us and the tech forgot
to update our spf records and we didn't notice a problem for a week. Some mail
servers just tagged us as "possible" spam. The sad situation seems to be that
a lot of spf records are wrong.)

What I would really like to see is a way to federate Facebook messaging. I'm
picking them for no reason other then a large user base, real names (mostly),
built in spam protection and controls, video messaging, the ability to share
content and have it highlighted in special ways. (It would then need file
transfer support and maybe voice chat.) Oh and it shouldn't be Facebook it
should be an open protocol.

I guess what I'm describing isn't email, I just want it to replace email. Also
ever since I saw the google tech demo, every message lately is looking like a
"wave". That kind of rich messaging is what users look for. The reason
something hasn't taken over email yet (I'm willing to guess) is that we don't
all want one company being in charge of it. Jabber (the core tech behind wave)
is free and open source and a known protocol that solves a lot if not all my
gripes. And most importantly anyone can run it.

------
TallGuyShort
People should realize that it doesn't matter how much you love your own
product - if your customer's hate it, it's broken.

~~~
JimmyL
We're not Microsoft's primary customer when it comes to considering Outlook.
Neither is Travelocity, or pretty much anyone that would know what CSS even
was, let alone be unhappy about the rendering used for it (or even know what a
rendering engine was).

Their core customer is Janice from Accounting, who sits on the Party Planning
committee at BigCo. and wants to send out an invite to the company's
Thanksgiving Party, for which she has selected some excellent WordArt to use.

It's Phil the low-level VB.net developer, whose idea of _version control_ is
sending an email to himself with a huge attachment every night so he can
recover off that if need be.

It's Stacy from HR, whose email signature is in a pink script font, so that we
know she's given that email a personal touch when she "signs" it like that.

That's who Outlook is designed for - big corporate offices, where all 90% of
the people want is to be able to send colorful emails with a drag-and-drop
toolbar using an interface they are already intimately familiar with. And by
that standard, their customers probably love the decision to use Word's
authoring engine, and will simply blame the people they got the email from
when it doesn't look right.

Think of it this way: if you even know this controversy exists, you're a more
technical user than those which Outlook is designed for.

~~~
TallGuyShort
Yeah, that's a very good point. I guess it's the same as the frustration we
have with IE. Most people don't even notice a problem because they don't care.
I'm not saying they SHOULDN'T care (at least on some issues), but I it really
isn't Microsoft's target audience.

