Comments on: Outlook 2010 and HTML Email

By: Derek Herman

Derek Herman — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 16:37:00 +0000

My favorite part was that Microsoft’s own marketing campaigns are thwarted due to their own crappy product. The post below says it all.

“Tim Dawson said:
“[click here to] Read this issue online if you can’t see the images or are using Outlook 2007.”

- Quoted from the official Microsoft Xbox newsletter.

Even your companies own marketing teams cant send out appealing newsletters using the tools you are providing. “

By: kyle steed

kyle steed — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 17:31:53 +0000

I can understand the fact that Microsoft is the largest software company in the world and that they have to make changes more gradual than other small companies, but what I don’t sympathize with is their continued support and development of products (and standards) that are less than stellar. (I use that term loosely.)

I think it’s easy to associate any/all Microsoft employees with the company itself, thereby assuming they’re all bent on the destruction of good design and development. But I think it’s safe to say that there are some good people there that want to make a difference. I haven’t met any of them personally, but from the post above it looks like David Greiner has talked with a few.

In my personal opinion, I would’ve liked to seen the FixOutlook.org site really make a difference in Microsoft’s stance. It’s just downright ugly to see MS Word as an HTML rendering system. *UGH* And to think that they better supported CSS 9-10 years ago is a huge laugh. I’m not sure what they were thinking on that one. So my final answer, yes, Microsoft is wrong for still planning to use MS Word for HTML emails. Period.

By: Anthony Woods

Anthony Woods — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 14:40:56 +0000

One of the most embarrassing moves from Microsoft this year. Plenty more to follow!

By: M Way

M Way — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 02:25:00 +0000

One of my favorite quotes by a Microsoft employee is from one of their reps that spoke at a conference in NYC last year – he said (verbatim): “So, I know a lot of you don’t like us. We know we suck… but we’re trying to get better.” Are they?

It’s hard to say. Ultimately, there is no short-term solution – at least, not a feasible one. Microsoft will continue to treat its products and the market the same way it always has: by relying on the masses of its technically-unsavvy end users to support whatever “Microsoft standard” it feels it should be enforcing. To be fair, none of this really matters for most of their products.

They’re really not the only evil, though: every major browser rendering engine has a different interpretation (however minor or major) of standards. In any case, I think that FixOutlook.org is really just a glimpse at a much larger, more abstract issue. I don’t particularly think that Microsoft will respect the view of a small developer audience (compared to its end users in general) unless they start catching major heat (eg more than angry bloggers and small organizations), but I do think it’s worth voicing, especially if it helps you sleep at night.