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
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...
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
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
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?
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....
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.
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.
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
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!