Microsoft abandons Outlook Express says ZDNet UK. I find this highly disappointing because I’ve really become attached to OE, mostly because of it’s enhanced IMAP functionality over Outlook 2003. However if you look at that bizarre out-of-context quote in the middle of the article,
“IMAP is just not a very rich protocol,” Steve Conn, Exchange Server product manager, told ZDNet Australia during the company’s Tech Ed conference. “The great majority of people used Outlook Express because they weren’t on a LAN environment, and Outlook was just too fat for them.”
It’s as out of place here as it is in the article. Basically though it sounds like they’re going to be focusing on Exchange functionality over IMAP. I’ve played around with Outlook 2003 and was very impressed but whether I use it or not is very dependent on how it works with IMAP, which I live on. I’ve been browsing the Evolution blog and the screenshots for the next version look really great, if reminiscent of Entourage. That would be fine for my desktop, and even my Mom’s desktop (I’m moving her over to Linux), but on my laptop which is tied to Windows by proprietary drivers and hardware, I’m still out of luck. Why is Microsoft abandoning the things that made them so prevalent on desktops? Hat tip: Leonard.
Here I’ve finally gotten hooked on IMAP (thanks to you) and they want to abandon it? *sigh* Big meanies.
(Speaking of IMAP, I still need help getting my spam to fall back in my spam folder. Since He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named broke it. Can you hook me up?)
MS abondons Outlook Express? well, maybe one day, the world will “abondon” eMails (see link) –
Why not abandon it? Now all those who are addicted to the MS feel have to buy Outlook licenses. I think this decision + the decision to drop standalone IE are two of their smartest desktop decisions yet.
I’d like to think that these choices would result in an upset user community that would stop using their products, but I know better. Worse is better.
I think it’s clear that Microsoft is still hell-bent on the idea of providing all their software as web-services, and I think that they’ve judged that their marketshare is so overwhelming that they can afford to use the stick to corral users to either directly to MSN/Hotmail (remember, everyone is required to create a Passport when they use either) or at the very least, as added incentive for migrating to Longhorn (which of course, will have lots of .NET and HailStorm hooks.
BTW, I’ve been using Mozilla Mail (and now Thunderbird) for a while. It works pretty well and I don’t have to worry about the latest security hole. I exclusively use IMAP, haven’t noticed too much funkiness.
Markus, interesting link. Where do you plan to go with those ideas?
Reagan, I am dropping it. 🙂
Leonard, I’ll give Thunderbird a try again. I also got an email from someone who used a mail component of Opera, which sounded interesting. I’m willing to pay for a good product.