Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Stops Development Of Outlook Express
Jman314 writes "According to a ZDNet story, Microsoft will cease development of their Outlook Express email client. "The technology doesn't go away, but no new work is being done. It is consumer email in an early iteration, and our investment in the consumer space is now focused around Hotmail and MSN. That's where we're putting the emphasis in terms of new investment and new development work." says Dan Leach, lead product manager for Microsoft's information worker product management group. Microsoft's alternatives include, not surprisingly, the full version of Outlook."
They think webmail is going to be more popular than imap, or pop3 mail boxes. So they are going to intergrate a Hotmail mail box into the next version of windows.
keanmarine.com
Where does that leave the general e-mail system if they focus on new systems based around Hotmail? If the regular Microsoft user who only knows Outlook (/Express) exists can only use Hotmail now, regular SMTP/POP3/IMAP servers may become a thing of the past. Not to mention leaving the non-Windows mail servers behind.
My Outlook on Outlook is comparible to the stability of Windows. Same with Hotmail.. Hey IDEA!!! Put the money from no Outlook dev to the anti spam project in hotmail.. I have gotten 46 spam messages in my box TODAY!
Here is a nice free email client. Oh, we changed our minds. Please use hotmail from here on out. Enter your password on the dotted line and we'll even POP your other accounts for you!
Email Portals at their best.
Now that they're not adding new security holes err I mean features then the bugfixes might eventually leave the default windows mail reader in a halfway secure state. Those e-mail viruses will need to find a new way to propagate right?
Does that mean they won't bundle an email client in Windows anymore? That's one good thing I see coming out of this. Hopefully a good, simple to use, secure, and free email client will be able to fill the gap.
Can I say more? This whole Outlook/Exchange thing has been one long nightmare as a provider. This is the best news I've heard in a long time. Just hoping it is true!
Unless it is part of the EU's ruling, and they are removing the e-mail client completely from new versions of Windows. It would be intereseting to see how many people who have a copy of Windows, also have a copy of Office, and actually use Outlook as their default mail manager.
And is anyone yet to be convinced with Thunderbird yet?
First there was no more new standalone Internet Explorer clients, and now there's no more Outlook Express. I see this as being a pretty good thing overall. The initial impact will be more users switching to other alternative non Microsoft software. At least that's what I'll be hoping to see.
My site
Catch Up? Like gone past?
I hate outlook and outlook express. At my real job, I have to use Outlook.
At my consulting Job I use evolution. Ah so much better. Then I have to go out and support (I do IT support) for outlook. YUCK. Express was better. Made more sense. When is MS gonna learn that there should be 2 ways to do things: Wizards for the lame, and straight forward for us techs?
What if MS attempted to turn every single one of their programs into something like the lease-this-because-you-can-no-longer-buy-it. What would many do. Just because they've announced this means little. What they should be announcing instead of waisting everyone's time, should be, that they're going to reaudit ALL versions of Windows for security holes.
That would impress me. I wonder what would MS do if everyone just got pissed and did some form of protest to the tune of "secure this now or we won't buy". It would be a sys admins nightmare to migrate machines over to other OS' but in the long run, it 'could' (note the could instead of unproven WOULD) save companies much needed dollars.
As for the outlook article, to be honest didn't read it because I don't use it, nor does anyone in my company.
MoFscker
The Mac version was last updated in.....damn, I keep on top of this stuff but it's been what...3 years since the last update? Microsoft has been slowly reducing the number of Mac apps over the past few years (it seemed to coincide with their new 'commitment' to the Mac around 2000 or so) Apple had no other choice but to put out Mail.app, to fill the gap. IE is gone, but everyone in the Mac community felt it was dead long before Safari came out - not getting an update for years at a time usually leaves that impression.
Oh well, I guess it is a strategic move to isolate themselves for blame and constant embarassment over their inability to put out a secure app. Almost everytime "new, crippling virus" is mentioned, you hear "exploits a vunerability in Outlook Express" in the same sentence.
This seems a logical step given several factors:
I was an OE user for rather a long while and it had always seemed a bit nicer interface than Outlook proper. In maybe three years, I never had a data failure and it was quite reliable. Obviously the security angle was, er, non-existent (anti-secure perhaps) but it felt fast and mostly did what I told it.
But I'm an Evolution user now, so OE won't be missed. Better for all of us, if you ask me.
There is no need to use a SlashDot sig for SEO...
One of the questions I've pondered over the years was why Outlook was never a proper super-set of Outlook Express. I have both available to me, but I still simply use Outlook Express because Outlook lacks the Newsreader function that Outlook Express has (and I use other software for my calendar, etc.).
Can anyone explain to my why they never folded this support into the full-blown Outlook? I'm sure it can't be difficult!
Here's an interesting thing to note ... ever try removing Outlook Express after installing Outlook?
... why do I need Outlook Express installed?" --uninstall
... when you launch Outlook after removing Outlook Express, you'll get a message indicating that Outlook NEEDS Outlook Express in order to view email. Go ahead and scratch your head for a few minutes on that one, but its true.
... how is it then, that Microsoft can continue to offer Outlook while stopping development of Outlook Express? (Perhaps some merging of the development resources going on there.)
"Hey, I've got Outlook
Here's the catch
SO
Skiers and Riders -- http://www.snowjournal.com
So if I read the last line of the article correctly, they'll stop shipping stand-alone versions of IE, and put the mail client in the main OS instead? Wasn't it that "bundling" that got them in the whole mess of trouble with the judge in the first place? Why doesn't Billy learn. When I buy an Operating System, I want an Operating System. When I buy a Mail Client, I want a Mail Client. Not part of one included in the other... It just frustrates me to no end that they keep doing this and expect us to roll over and not notice/not care.
------ Will of Iron, Knees of Jello.
Problem is, most open source software is still created by hackers for hackers. Documentation is incomplete, fragmented, outdated and inconsistent in its level of detail. FAQ's are rarely kept up to date and many websites simply are not organized well. HINT: an intro page of a toolsets site should very obviously contain an "about [toolset]", "download", "documentation", "support/forum" and "other resources" that flows easily under the fingertips of the reader. It should not however look and feel like some 15 year olds site dedicated to organizing his collection of sports memorabilia or video games.... unless of course said 15 y.o. has the previously mentioned well organized site.
One rule of thumb oft ignored by forum/bbs trollers is that of solving the problem of annoying and repetative "noob" questions. Saying RTFM when the manual is not accessable, complete, organized or just plain ol' well written is silly. Also it is silly to not solve the problem. Got a lot of people asking the same questions? Hmmm, the ol' pattern recognition and reasoning centers of the brain should be firing up then. Hint: update the FAQ, documentation and forums (sticky's work wonders).
The more someone has to spend just getting a tool to work, then figuring it out, then actually adapting it to their use (learning and applying/adapting its own idiosyncrocies and differences in approaching solutions) the less that system becomes a "tool" and the more it becomes a dead weight.
Hacking is fun and many great innovations come out daily from that environment... of those a solution to this problem alas has yet to surface. Everyone hates documenting yet a team does in fact communicate on some order when solving problems. Systems have dependencies and modular systems have API's and interfaces. Instead of using word of mouth (which includes chat and email) try actually planning out what you want to do. Use issue tracking and management systems to not only make it easier for you to document but then smartly use automated systems to generate documentation and guides from there. Save time and frustration by reducing redundant questions from newbies.
MS produces eye candy that sucks. Perhaps we can produce well organized and designed Human Interfaces that make eye candy useless. Analogy: If a group of independents want to make cars that are cheaper, more efficient, more reliable and just better to drive, then wouldn't it be in their best interest to ensure that there is as little learning curve as possible. Why do silly things like put the steering wheel at their feet or the gas and brake controls on the dash? Unless there is a clear reason to be different then don't change things. (if you ain't fixing it, don't change it... btw, is it broke in the first place?) Changing for the purpose of changing is like those self proclaimed goths that for about 15 - 20 years have tried so hard to be "unique" and "different" yet were all just the same.... they just happened to be the same but be a smaller group of butterflies with attitudes.
Not only IE and now OE, but in their next version of their OS they are "integrating" Windows Media Player. It will no longer be a stand alone app. Boy am I glad the US justice system knows how to stop monopolies from ruining captialism.
If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land,
it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. -James Madison
Pros:
Easy to get to and use.
Cons:
Where do you "store" your mail and attachments? Keep them on the server?
What if you have multiple accounts? You would have to check multiple web mail sites and or configure one webmail account to use POP to get the other ones. That mean password in the clear to the other accounts AND that password is stored on a third site. I dont know of any webmail sites that can be configured to fetch remote mail in any other manner then plain old POP.
Limited interface and functionality. You are bascially STUCK with whatever layout, filter options, spam solution (or lack of) that the provider feels is best for XXX amount of users they have. You are also stuck with the ads at login, during the session, and after logout (like Hotmail taking you directly to MSN after clicking logout). Hotmail specific but clicking on an email link always keeps Hotmail in a frame at the top of the page like a follow you function, even when opening in a new tab or window.
Stuck with HTML email along with all the web bugs and tracking links. This would be a spammers heaven. Of course with any modern browser (maybe even IE), you can turn of image loading with one click.
IMHO, I like web mail as an option but it is not a long term solutions for me.
Bad boys rape our young girls but Violet gives willingly.
Everyone needs an SMTP mail client of some kind. Now that OE is dead, we're bound to see the rise of 3rd party mail programs given that Outlook is expensive and not everyone likes hotmail.
This is my sig.
I must admit that Thunderbird is coming along nicely, but it is a pig in its current release. Maybe when it hits ver 1.0+ it will be up to speed, but for now OE trounces it.
Who here actualy sets up OE for their parents/grandparents/whomever? Web based e-mail is perfect for those that are computer illiterate. The interface is familar, virus scanning is built in, and with a tweaked Mozilla install they are ad free!
It is a pitty to see ANY software have it's dev cycle stopped. I used PMMAIL for OS/2 and still use the registered Windows client for my day to day e-mail. It was very modern in '98, but it is starting to show it's age. I'll keep using it for my POP mail, and I'll keep OE around for archiving my hotmail account. Hopefully Thuderbird will continue to trin down and it's features will be ironed out soon. I just wish Blueprint Software would get development rolling on PMMAIL or open source the project.
~Z
They've spent the last few years taking Hotmail from something that was absolutely *ubiquitous* (people who weren't advertising constructs used hotmail as a -verb-. few services can claim that) to an obscure and neglected also-ran. Now they want to do the same for Outlook Express.
And I wish them well at it! ^_^
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
Of course, to remove HTML mail would require a level of effort such that a proper check on spam would be easier to implement.
Most Outlook Express clients that are configured to send HTML are configured to send both text/plain and text/html, with reasonably valid tags. Most Outlook Express users also spell at least half Just flag as "junk" any message 1. that has text/html but no inline text/plain, 2. whose inline text/html content does not substantially match its text/plain content, 3. whose text/html content has a large number of comments or unknown elements, or 4. that, after deleting words not valid in any language the intended recipient speaks, consist primarily of a link whose content is an image to be retrieved via HTTP. These quick checks seem to work well as a front line of defense against junk e-mail, and SpamAssassin uses variants on them.
Will I retire or break 10K?
One thing that still tends to suck these days is mail access. With the exception of Evolution and Mozilla Thunderbird, the e-mail experience is really lacking these days. Web mail is nice, but it's still really slow unless you are dealing with proprietary packages. MSN and Hotmail suck compared to what could be if the right combination of technologies were used.
With the departure of Outlook Express, a void will need to be filled and I believe that this opens the door to new alternatives. If there was a project that combined web mail, a mail client and an IM client to produce a seamless user experience no matter which component is used,I think it could blow away anything that MS has to offer. Couple that with a solid backend and a new spam proof protocol and I think e-mail would be revolutionized. As it is e-mail doesn't scale well at all when it comes to content. It should be media rich, but capable of being thinned down to be able to work within a simple text only interface. That's something that is totlaly lacking right now. There's lots of work to be done to turn e-mail into something universaly useful and valuable. Let's take this opportunity to start something now.
Un-news
Unfortunately, Eudora's database format can't handle my 9,000-message inbox; it expects your inbox to be small, and only your sub-folders to be large. And it hasn't been significantly updated in many years.
OE, for all its many flaws, is the least-worst IMAP client for Windows that supports HTML in e-mail. It handles large message stores flawlessly; it does disconnected mode; it lets me do a full-text search easily, it supports authenticated SMTP, STARTTLS, and IMAP over SSL; it cleanly supports multiple accounts, and it's certainly got the least clunky UI.
I also believe it is the *only* client (aside from Outlook itself) that supports the IDLE extension, which lets my Cyrus IMAP server push "new mail" notifications asynchronously, instead of requiring the client to poll every N minutes.
I have tried AOL Communicator, which I assume shares some code with Thunderbird. It's the next best to OE, no question, and it's very impressive for a 1.0 release, but it took *five times as long* to download my message store, and there were a few usability bugs I ran into.
I tried Mulberry a while ago, but I didn't like it; I forget why, exactly, but it looks like they've recently released a new client, so maybe I should check into that again.
Sift through the obvious spam ones, the ones I don't care about, and transfer the extremely important ones to my Inbox where they won't get deleted. After checking my e-mail, empty the entire Trash folder and you've used about 5 megs of memory for e-mail/spam courtesy of Microsoft. Each day.
Really, you got booed??? That's a bit bizarre...
I've filtered pure html mail for a long time -- it's a highly effective way to get rid of spam, and nobody I know (even my non-computer-adept relatives) is so clueless as to send pure-html email.
I've noticed recently that spammers are trying to get around this, not by putting their spam in text form, but by trying to disguise the html using multipart etc (it's still easy to automatically identify though).
We live, as we dream -- alone....
But they always made complete sense when viewed through the perspective of gaining control. Looks like this may be another example.
They think webmail is going to be more popular than imap, or pop3 mail boxes.
If Microsoft lets its market share for desktop-based e-mail clients slip, it could be short-sighted.
I use web-based mail at work (iPlanet/SIMS) and web-based mail (Yahoo) at home as my primary mail-reader. I have broadband in both locations and the responsiveness of web-based e-mail conpared to desktop e-mail clients is negligible.
My work-at-home CEO has satellite at home. He can't use the web-based product because the interactive sluggishness from delay and packet loss would kill his productivity. SSH-tunneled POP works great for him because his local e-mail client (Outlook) downloads new e-mail in the background and sends messages out in the background while he is composing/reading mail quickly in the foreground.
When I administered e-mail for a dialup ISP, the primary method our users preferred to access their e-mail was POP to Outlook Express or Netscape Messenger. It is painfully slow to browse through e-mail over a dialup connection. There are still millions of dialup users out there. They are the majority of users on the Internet.
If people use wireless devices in the future, their experience will be more similar to dialup/satellite than broadband, and they'll demand a product that isn't web-based-only. Some of the ideas brought to light by Central or similar technologies could satisfy both broadband/fixed and narrowband/mobile users.
Microsoft makes an excellent user interface for e-mail. They're good at that. Their enterprise/corporate customers may continue to pay for it. Other products like M2, Evolution, and Mozilla will help fill the consumer niche if they open it up. If it weren't for Microsoft's early monopoly bundling tactics vs Netscape Navigator (founded on a "beta/intro is free, production version costs money" business model), we might not have nor expect free browser and e-mail software. We're spoiled. If it weren't for security or playform supportissues, more of us Slashdotters might use Outlook Express.
-ez
PS: I lied. My primary mail reader is MH.
What to shop at a particular grocery store? First you have to be a subscriber before you can even enter the front door. Care to buy a car? Not in the future. You will only be able to lease it. Buy a TV? Think again. You lease your new HDTV from your TV Content Provider.
Essentially, you will be nickle and dimed to death with subscription fees for everything. The concept of "Ownership" will be used only in reference to the person(s) held legally responsible/liable. The brave new economy will have all the compassion of a fly-by-night cell phone contract:
"I'd like to cancel my service"
"Certainly, that will be $1000"
"What?! Never mind! It's cheaper to keep her."
"Whatever you say, that will be $750."
"For what?!"
"Sir, according to your contract, you agreed to pay $500 in the event that you initiated a cancelation of your service, and an additional $250 consultation fee for realizing that you didn't want to cancel after all. All totalled that will be $1250."
"What?! You just said $750 a minute ago."
"That was before I explained the agreement to you. That's an additional $500. You're up to $1750 now. Care to go for $2250?"
"Hold on a minute! I'm looking at the contract that I signed with you people, and NO WHERE does it state anything about..."
"I'm sorry sir, but paragraph 7c of that contract clearly states that you agree to accept the terms of all future contracts that we pull out of our ass. That will be $4500, please."
"FOR WHAT?! OH... Nevermind." [click]
--
Brian: Do you ever listen to yourself talk?
Peter: I drift in and out.
Geekmail (www.geekmail.cc) offers a Yahoo and Hotmail fetchmail type service for their IMAP accounts. Works quite well. I really like consolidating my accounts with their service.
Does this mean MS will finally put newsgroup support in the full Outlook product? About freakin' time.
Well, I wouldn't say that evolution is behind much if at all, but it is very interesting.
IE: no tabs, no mouse gestures, no popup blocking to my knowledge, renders fonts like crap, mildly broken CSS support, broken javascript.
IE has really fallen behind in the times; Opera and Mozilla are gaining by leaps and bounds on Windows, and browsers like Galeon 1.2.10 have folks like me swooning on Linux.
Mozilla mail, Evolution and the like are now poised to become even better. With AbiWord/Open Office/Etc. getting better and better, GnuCash, gnumeric, etc....
Is this really a wise move for Microsoft, resting on their laurels?
~Dalcius
Rome wasn't burnt in a day.
What really happens is that Outlook does not generate any kind of revenu stream for Microsoft, while Hotmail does, spam, advertisment, extra space, and msn are a wealthy influx of money for Microsoft.
Look for more stringent conditions on hotmail usage in the near future.
I don't want to see your tables, highlighted text, bullet points, different and "creative" use of fonts, "cute" Javascript scrolling signature or any of that shit. That's what a word processor is for, so fucking use one. Email is to send textual information and if you have trouble expressing yourself in that medium I suggest you go back to school and retake basic English. Anyone who has enough time to sit and change the fonts they're using in their table when sending and email is obviously expendable.
But seriously folks, I've been fighting pitched battles to keep our place off of Outlook/OE and Exchange. For reasons technical, logistical, and financial.
One of the big claims that users have is "well, Outlook Express is built in. Why can't I use it?" Because
- It has a nasty set of default values that clobber our IMAP server
- Every email worm out there is designed to pull from it's address book.
- It has a tendency to take a complete dump on your settings stored in your roaming profile
- The address book has a habit of spontaneously combusting on our network.
That's why.Now they no longer have the "It's built in" excuse.
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
Sometimes HTML formatted email can be useful. I will sometimes send email with bits of code 'inlined' in the message. I believe using proportional font with a fixed width font for the code fragments presents my message much more clearly than a plain text would. I can also emphasise important sections of my message a lot more nicely than using something like *emphasised text*.
Nonetheless, if I am not using any HTML formatting in my message, I will always send it in plain text format.
Maybe they are dropping it because users wont accept advertising in their email client (OE did for 1 version but was quickly dropped perhaps people complained?) but if its on the web (in a browser) they can advertise all they like (look at the mess that what they call hotmail now)
then they can get advertisers to focus on associating users email accounts with user names and all that lovely personal information (courtesy of your "msn wallet(TM)" and "msn passport(TM)", tie that to your machines GUID and msn's cookie stealing exploits (notice hotmail.com does not exist anymore and is now a msn subdomain) and voila , you have WindowsXP 2004 marketing machine where you are not the customer any longer, you are the product and you will even hand over 299$ (cost of XP) for the privilege while assigning all your IP rights to them and their "partners".
Microsoft isnt a software company, its a marketing company that creates software.
not that it will affect me or you but you have to feel sorry for the sheep that have no idea whats going on.
cheers
I know it very unlikely they would, but it would be very cool if they did, what the Open Source community could do with it would be great, iron out bugs, add functionality etc....
Anyone want to send an email to Bill and ask nicely?
A few days ago when the Paul Graham article was posted to the frontpage, I was thinking about the fact that MS hasn't implemented Bayesian filtering (or any powerful filtering) into OE.
The three possibilities I came up with were:
MS wanted to give Hotmail/MSN a competitive edge over other ISPs and mail services.
MS didn't consider it worth the money to add Bayesian filtering to OE.
MS is using Hotmail as a testbed for various versions of filtering software; by making changes and observing user behaviour, they could determine whether people generally agreed with the filters, thus roughly gauging their effectiveness. Since changing source on a central server is a faster method of deploying updates than forcing users to require a new client, Hotmail is the perfect place to test new filtering schemes.
Honestly, I thought that either the first or the third was true. Here, it turns out that the first and the second are true.
I wonder what ISPs will be left to do? I suppose they'll either have to seek out a cheap/free mail client for Windows, or switch to webmail.
Somebody get that guy an ambulance!
>Any image can be used as a tracking device, it doesn't have to be a 1x1 pixel size image to track you.
That is why Outlook 2003 blocks ALL images by default.
It's good that the latest full versions of Outlook fix this insidious problem.
At the same time, though, I have to wonder what fraction of Outlook users are using versions prior to Outlook 2003; it may be high enough that this kind of spam spyware tactic will be used for a while because it is pratically successful.
If Outlook users could upgrade to 2003 for free, maybe that would help.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
After my internship @ Microsoft Redmond, I went back for a full-time interview with a couple different groups. My first interviewer asked the "So which products do you like?" question. I immediately said 'Outlook Express!', since I was using it religiously at the time. (It really is one of the more elegant pieces software ever to come out of the Pacific Northwest.) Later, they took me up to see someone else. It was the Program Manager for Outlook Express. ('The Godfather!') As of 1999 (or early 2000), there was only one guy. He was really cool and smart and all and I remember his eyes lit up when I mentioned that sometimes people just want a new version with better UI and graphics. That was a big part of his job, I guess. It didn't seem like there was any interest company-wide at that point (four years ago) to do anything else to Outlook Express, depite the fact that jillions of people use it every day. He implied that some of the crap features (like the Ivy/Party templates or whatever) were pushed by upper management and no one used it. :)
I'm not terribly surprised that they're forgoing future development, but I hope they don't drop it in favor of some .NET-enabled solution. As far as Microsoft software goes, it was one of the best. Here's to you, Outlook Express.
What is even more amazing is that if you install Outlook and you do not have OE installed, Outlook will automatically install it. You have to have the entire OE application installed to only use the news reader.
Oh well, I guess disk space is cheap.
Just because Microsoft is chosing not to continue further developement of OE does not mean that they are abandoning it.
Microsoft hasen't done squat to notepad, paint, or solitare since Windows 3.0 (maybe earlier) but continues to ship them, because they work and are stable (although I admit that functionality may be low.)
I use OE every day, and I happen to really like it. I read all message as plain text, and have never recieved a virus through OE. I can't see any reason to think that I'll be changing e-mail clients anytime soon
OK...
I can do this. I am, after all,
a superhero!
An XML based Webmail application could solve a lot of the issues brought up here. As I understand XML (through the various XML apps we use) Once a user hits the database for the requested data, that data is then stored on the client side in cached or in browser memory XML pages. With the data then stored locally, when a user manipulates that data it doesn't have to go back to the server, it just manipulates the local copy therefore it doesn't have to rely on a stable or fast internet connection, and then it just sends updates to the server afterwards in the background. Also through the transformable nature of XML it should be theoretically possible to click a button and have emails stored in some email message standard that various email readers could read or just as a text file.
I had an interesting moment the other day. My father works several doors down from me; I'm IT support for the Physical Plant, he's the Auto Shop supervisor.
.mbx files into standard RFC822 mail files."
His new laptop (for running auto diagnostic software) came without an SSH client installed, so he had been trying to use Netscape Mail to read his email. He found it impossible; it was way too inefficient for the volume of email that he gets from various technician's groups. He requested that I "put PINE on the machine so I can check my email like I do at home."
Here is a guy that doesn't like PCs at all, only using them to get info about cars and ask me where we should meet for lunch on Sunday, and a text-based MUA works better for his needs than a GUI one. Someone who gets the volume of email that you do may want to take a closer look at an MUA with the efficiency, flexibility, and power of Mutt.
Also:
http://freshmeat.net/projects/mbx2mbox/
"Converts Outlook Express
On the first page of results for "outlook". Written in Perl and supposedly cross-platform.
WMBC freeform/independent online radio.
This is just the next phase of Microsoft's "decommoditization" of basic internet services. Pay attention kids.
1. Embrace. Microsoft provides Outlook Express to connect to "commodity" internet services like POP and IMAP accounts. OE is the default mail client for Internet Explorer and quickly becomes the preferred application for many ISP's POP accounts since no additional software is needed.
1. Extend. Microsoft buys Hotmail email accounts, provides web-based interface, and launchs proprietary authentication system called Passport.
2. Extinguish. Microsoft discontinues Outlook Express, leaving ISP's in the lurch, and paves the way for a proprietary, web-services based solution.
Want to connect to Yahoo mail? Not with Microsoft's mail program. Want to connect to your ISP's mail? What? You need a separate application for that? Why can't I just click the mail icon? Of course, that takes me to Microsoft's mail system.
The big question is whether Microsoft is premature in step three. I think not.
-Hope
Very interesting article on the topic of HTML/JavaScript email. In short: never ever ever allow your email client to run JavaScript. :)
The article talks about some very interesting possibilities that make simply knowing how long you viewed the mail seem pale by comparison: JavaScript can be used to track any text added when forwarding the mail, track who gets the mail next (their email address), how many times a specific copy of a message is forwarded, etc etc. So, if you leave JavaScript turned on, there may have been some truth to those "If you forward this mail to everyone you know, Bill Gates will give you a penny" type of chain emails after all.
Note that this functionality is still available in some clients, but ought to be turned off by default.
I do not have a signature
______________________
__R___V_______U____P__
__E___I___A___N____R__
__A___A___T___R____I__
__L___G_______E____C__
______R_______A____E__
______A_______L____S__
More Info Available Here
or
gcmmmtxw bq xqsu ow cwj pxiry gogx
The last one seems to be a way of getting around mail filters of some kind (maybe on the theory that new unknown words give the message a higher rating). The first one, I have no idea about.