> Paul's right, mostly. It's business. Get it out the door. But, Paul is
> also a bit wrong. The only real difference between E and Outlook is the PIM
> stuff
Which Outlook? Outlook for Macintosh, Outlook Express for Macintosh,
Outlook for Windows, Outlook Express for Windows, or Outlook 2000 for
Windows?
Most of the "Outlook" versions have a goodly portion of the PIM stuff. Most
of the "Outlook Express" versions do not.
> -- which really just doesn't work like it should, by any standard.
I'd mostly agree that the feature set is lacking.
> (Especially since it was *touted* as being able to sync with the Palm/Visor
Um, it can sync with the Palm and the Visor. It's just that there are some
limitations in the syncing.
Palm limits the number of available categories. You can't sync more
categories than Palm supports.
Palm doesn't allow categories to have more than 16 characters per category
name. This limitation wasn't known at the time that E'rage's conduit was
written. And the Palm software doesn't deal well with this attempts, thus
the never ending parade of duplicates.
Having spent some time playing with Palm syncing (we were looking at doing a
lightweight IMAP client for the Palm and we wanted to support syncing as
well as downloading), I can say that the entire syncing architecture is
undeserving of the word architecture. When I looked at it, it was a layer
of marginally functional hacks on top of a layer of barely documented calls.
Not that that matters, once Microsoft "supported" the functionality, they
were left stuck "supporting" the architecture as well.
> And no one could have researched what all the bugs were *going* to be.
> Given that the real change in the app was the PIM stuff, you'd think they'd
> have done it better. (Well, I should say "I" think they should have done it
> better.)
I agree that the syncing stuff would have benefit from a few more weeks
testing.
> But...again...it's business. MS wants to release a "suite" so they need E
> in there. So...bugs be damned, it ships. Target: Palm? Remember that the
> first version of IE was crap compared to Navigator (at the time)
The first version of IE was essentially a licensed version of Mosaic with
different graphics. Pretty funny since Mosaic was considered "wonderful" by
so many. Navigator was (and remains) putrescent.
But I'll spare you the rant about worthless "free" software salting the
earth and sweeping the market clear of small, innovative networking software
companies.
> but that didn't stop the targeting (and crumbling). I was furious back then,
> but I came to really enjoy IE. (And, that is the insidious part of
> monopolies...you don't get the best product rising to the top.
If we're talking about IE versus Netscape, it's clear that the better
product "rose to the top".
> Precisely the point being litigated as we type.)
Suffice it to say that this is a vastly simplistic statement.
The main point being litigated is that Microsoft didn't spread the wealth
and the politicians wanted some. So they made Microsoft the poster child
for senseless, expensive litigation that gets Attorney Generals' names in
the paper.
Fortunately, AOL, Netscape, Oracle, and Sun were willing to attempt to
litigate their way to market dominance since they certainly couldn't get
there though innovation.
Is Microsoft the most innovative company in the world? Absolutely not. But
Microsoft isn't afraid to make a mistake, isn't afraid to incrementally
advance, and could care less whether or not they had the good idea first.
On the other hand, Apple, Netscape, Oracle, and Sun have long suffered from
"Not invented here".
> Now that iCab is here to stay, I've begun to use IE less and less....but I
> suppose even IE will eventually be updated to rival some of the niceties of
> iCab (too many features to even begin comparing.)
Opera <http://www.opera.no/> also has much to be said for it. Although it's
more of a Windows thing than a Macintosh thing.
> Entourage *looks* better than Palm Desktop, but it certainly doesn't *work*
> better.
Perhaps if Palm would do a better job of spitting out their APIs, this could
be solved.
> Sure, there are some bells and whistles that are 'pretty neat' ... once. But
> these become a major barrier to *really* implementing E in daily usage for
> anything but an email client (and there probably is not a better one of those
> for the Mac anywhere, Outlook being equal in my opinion.)
Which Outlook? ;-)
> I DO think the whole suite, as a set, IS bloatware. All this junk that you
> can't turn off. (Secretaries used to need 18 MB of clip art, but do we
> really need that for daily use?)
What's that have to do with E'rage?
> And the fact that IE and E have a bit of a hard time working together is just
ludicrous.
It's called a bug. Although, in all honesty, I'd call the lack of
integration throughout the Office family annoying.
> And no matter how I change settings, or format URLs, the spell checker always
> chokes on them. How can that possibly be the case, without some real errors
> in programming?
As has been covered in this forum, your spelling issues seem relatively
isolated.
> Outlook rocked, and the MS team "has no one to blame but themselves", is how
> I see it...not the end user as Paul suggested.
Blame for what? That E'rage is probably the best email client thus far made
available on any platform?
> I do think Paul's advice has to prevail, however. If we just don't find the
> application to be "all that", then we should find something else.
As I'm notoriously fond of telling people. If you think it's so easy, write
your own. ;-)
> Unfortunately, that might mean a slight dip in the bottom line from the Mac
> camp, because IE and Outlook rock together, and they are free.
E'rage is part of Office. OE was part of Office.
Somehow I suspect that people weren't buying Office to get OE. But I know
that some are buying Office to get E'rage.
> And, since we seem to be therapeutically purging our frustration, what the
> heck is with the name "Entourage"? (def: "A group of attendants or
> associates; a retinue.") Perhaps Alpaca was a better choice: "it's alpaca
> in buta none of ita worka")
>
> Keep the feature list rolling, is what I say. All of this is fine stuff,
> and venting once in awhile is healthy. Like any relationship.
>
> I do believe that this list is the best damned list I've ever subscribed to.
> There is always something new to learn, always free-flowing opinion, and
> always a response when you really need one. And the fact the MS team does
> seem to read the list frequently, that's one step closer to the source in
> getting your voice heard.
One thing you should realize about developers. By the time a product has
been out for a little while, developers know "what's wrong with their
product" far more than any user.
When you're writing code, you don't see "what's right", you see "what's
wrong". And the list can be crushingly depressing.
Also keep in mind that problems are vastly over represented in these kinds
of forums.
Relatively few people will yell about the merits of your software. We use
to figure that, at best, 1 out of a 100 satisfied customers would mention
it. Whereas the ratio of dissatisfied customers who mention it is much,
much higher (especially since we had free technical support and a toll free
number).
> And....AND...the scripting work that you see here is a grand testament to
> Apple's insight with AS, and the office:mac team's commitment to the OS in
> general.
>
> I think if we can hang on, with all the peeves we may have, we will not need
> to change email clients ever again. This thing will also rock...someday.
It rocks now. It'll rock more later.
Few people seem to notice that the relatively few who "walk away from
Entourage" are returning to using 3-5 applications in its place. ;-)
mikel
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