All, I don't doubt that the people who develop Entourage are talented and dedicated to their work. So if I offended anyone on the Entourage team, I apologize.
As for, "the Entourage group exists to drive Mac users to Windows. If so, why even bother having an Entourage group?" MS has developed plenty of code design specifically to support a technology in such a way as to "encourage" you to switch. All their Novell support comes to mind. They exist because Bill and Steve cut a $150M deal 97 in which Apple got out of the SW business (they killed Rhapsody for Intel and never developed a competitor to MS Office) and MS committed to supporting the Mac platform with Office (At the time, Steve felt the future of the Mac platform depended on having MS Office) This was a really bad deal because it forever hamstrung development of products like Entourage (see John C. Welch's posts about the size and financial conditions of the Entourage team) It also closed off certain SW segments for Apple--like an Office suite. As for, "Rest assured that Microsoft is working hard to address these cross compatibility concerns." Again I wasn't trying to disrespect the Entourage development team. I was simply stating the FACT that the enterprise that they are a part of will never allow them to develop a product with feature parity to Outlook (Outlook 2001 was close, but still didn't have feature parity). The misplaced fear inside MS is that doing so would make the MacOS too much of a threat to their Windows license revenue. The reality is that the MacOS is tied to proprietary hardware and thus the MacOS/MacHW platform will never displace the Win/x86 platform because large volume buyers will never buy a proprietary product like that. I'd be surprised if Steve is happy with the current state of affairs with respect to his deal. But then again when you go up against a monopolist and survive you should count your blessings and be happy to live off the scraps that fall off the king's table. Besides, what are his alternative? Break the deal and compete against MS? That would probably destroy Apple and would most likely get him fired by the board again for endangering Apple's financial future. He can't sue MS, they'd stop developing software for Apple, not to mention the fact that the 97 deal was supposed to settle all past law suits and call a truce to future suits. He has no options other than take what he can get and shut up. Which is what all Entourage users are supposed to do: pay their money and shutup. (Maybe Richard Stallman is right after all) -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Dennis T Cheung Sent: Wednesday, October 20, 2004 5:54 PM To: Entourage:mac Talk Subject: Re: Entourage-Talk Digest - 10/19/04 Well if you fully understand that Entourage, Outlook, Exchange, Windows are different groups - then it strikes me as being peculiar that you would leap to the conclusion that the Entourage group exists to drive Mac users to Windows. If so, why even bother having an Entourage group? The fact of the matter is that Outlook has been around for 87918273 years, whereas Exchange in Entourage has been around since 7/2003. FWIW, it took over 8 years to put a man on the moon. That silliness aside, the Entourage team is composed of Mac users at Microsoft - and, surprise surprise, Exchange is used there - so the issues are quite well known. Rest assured that Microsoft is working hard to address these cross compatibility concerns. On 10/20/04 11:08 AM, "Sonntag, Paul" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > John, > > A. Every single issue I list came word for word out of "Microsoft Office 2004 > for Mac: Working with Exchange Server" > > http://www.microsoft.com/mac/downloads.aspx?pid=download&location=/mac/DOWNLOA > D/office2004/WorkingWithExchange.xml > > So these are defects that MS freely admits to and acknowledges. > > B. #14 below is listed as a deployment problem wherein folders disappear under > certain conditions > http://www.entourage.mvps.org/exchange/server_side.html > > C. I fully understand that Entourage uses the DAV interface and is therefore > limited to functions that are bound to DAV. I also understand the Entourage, > Outlook and Exchange are developed by different groups within MS. > > My point simply is that I don't care about any of that. These three groups are > all on the same team and if we can put a man on the moon, we can have feature > parity for Macs. Move everything onto DAV, merge or partner the Entourage and > Outlook groups, give Entourage developers the same access and clout as Outlook > developers. It's not a matter of money (MS has enough). It's not a technical > challenge (all the source code belongs to one company). It is a matter of > will. > > If MS is going to claim that they want Macs to be Native Exchange clients, > they need to keep their word and not try to execute a sales strategy while > they lie to us. > > CLEARLY MAC USERS ARE SUPPOSED TO TRY AND USE ENTOURAGE WITH EXCHANGE, GET > FRUSTRATED AND SWITCH TO WINDOWS. > > I just wish MS would be honest about it. > > Paul > > > > -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of John C. Welch > Sent: Wednesday, October 20, 2004 9:34 AM > To: E'Rage digest > Subject: Re: Entourage-Talk Digest - 10/19/04 > > On 10/19/04 10:00 PM, "Entourage:mac Talk" > <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >> I am trying to get the following Entourage 2004 limitations/features added to >> developer's todo list. > > One thing to remember is that E'rage is limited to what HTTP-DAV supports in > Exchange 2000. Exchange 2003 supports a LOT more via DAV, damned near > everything you can do via MAPI, but to support that requires Exchange 2003. > Considering how people screamed about not support Exchange 5.5, I don't see > requiring 2003 as a good idea. > >> >> 1. Entourage 2004 provides a solution for e-mail, group calendaring, >> scheduling, Global Address Book, and delegation only. Certain advanced >> Exchange features, such as voting, shared tasks, shared notes, and >> server-side >> rules, are not accessible. > > Many of those are limitations of of DAV in Exchange 2000, so E'rage is > limited there as well. Looking at OWA, even in IE 6 Win, the only way I can > do a shared task is to create it in outlook. I can't create tasks or notes > via OWA 2000, unless I'm posting in a folder that is a task or note folder. > >> >> 2. Entourage 2004 does not provide full public folder or delegation >> support. > > Nor does OWA 2000. >> >> 3. Only e-mail messages appear in Entourage. Other item types that >> might >> be in the public folder < such as Calendar events, contacts, or tasks < do >> not >> appear in Entourage. > > Well, you CAN see calendar events, et al, but your statement is kind of > ambiguous, so if you mean seeing non-email public folders, then yeah, that's > something that really isn't working right. > >> >> 4. To have Entourage automatically download the messages in a specific >> public folder, a user must subscribe to that folder. > > Well yes. If you have 5000 public folders, do you really want entourage > syncing with all of them, even if you don't want it to? > > >> >> 5. Public folders cannot be created, dragged, moved, renamed, or >> deleted >> by using Microsoft Entourage. > > Yeah, that one should be working > >> >> 6. Downloading the public folder list from the Exchange server can be >> very slow if there are many folders. > > Known issue. > >> >> 7. Entourage does not save the list of public folders. The list is >> downloaded every time the user selects the top-level public folders >> container. >> To avoid downloading the folder list frequently, users can subscribe to their >> favorite public folders in Entourage. Subscribed folders in Entourage are not >> added to the Outlook public folders Favorites list, nor are folders in the >> Outlook public folders Favorites list added to subscribed folders in >> Entourage. > > Two different client access methodologies. Outlook 2001 Mac server rules > were invisible to Outlook Win. This may be fixed with the improved DAV > support in Exchange 2003, but if you implement too many 2003 features, then > you can't work with Exchange 2000. > >> >> 8. Users cannot post directly to a public folder. To post a message, >> the >> public folder must have an e-mail address, and the user must have the correct >> access privileges. Users can also drag existing messages to a public folder, >> depending on a user�s privileges. > > Well the access privileges thing is a non-sequiter. You obviously only want > those users who are allowed to post in a folder to post in the folder. The > email requirement is a proper PITA though. > >> >> 9. The Global Address List is available to Entourage 2004 users only if >> the Active Directory (AD) Global Catalog (GC) server is exposed to LDAP >> queries. > > When wouldn't it be, since it's an LDAP server? > >> >> 10. If mail folders are displayed in Outlook Web Access or Outlook, but >> not in Entourage, there is an Exchange server limitation. Ensure that the >> latest Exchange server patches and service packs have been applied to the >> Exchange server, use Outlook Web Access or Outlook to rename the folders that >> were not displayed, and then rename them back to their original names. > > The MacBU has no control over this part. It's not something they can fix. > >> >> 11. An unexplained failure to synchronize messages in the Entourage >> error >> log might be the result of the Exchange server blocking certain DAV verbs >> that >> Entourage needs. Read Knowledge Base article 823175, �Fine-Tuning and Known >> Issues When You Use the Urlscan Utility in an Exchange 2003 Environment� on >> the Microsoft Web site at http://support.microsoft.com/ >> <http://support.microsoft.com/> , or send the issue to your Exchange >> administrator for troubleshooting. > > Neat, but again, the MacBU can't really do anything about this > >> >> 12. The read status of public folder mails might be lost when the folder >> is synchronized. There is no workaround for this issue. (WOW!) > > Is this on a fully patched exchange server? > >> >> 13. If users are receiving too many reminders, the Calendar preference >> Tentatively add events when invitations are received might be enabled. To >> eliminate this type of reminder, disable this preference. (This preference is >> disabled by default when an Exchange account is created in Entourage.) > > What exactly is the MacBU supposed to do to fix this, since it looks like > they are doing the right thing here. > >> >> 14. Deployments where Outlook 2003 users rename folders that are also >> synchronized by Entourage 2004 users > > And the problem is? > >> >> 15. Entourage provides no offline access to the Global Address List. >> Offline, recently used addresses obtained from the Global Address List will >> appear in the most recently used list provided in the To field of an >> Entourage >> message. > > There's no facility for that without caching the entire GAL which would > cause rather huge amounts of databloat. The only workaround would be a > scheduled process that dumped the GAL to LDIF, then dumped that into your > E'rage address book. > > The second point is how e'rage works. Recently used addresses show up in the > recently used addresses list. Normal Operation, no malf. > >> >> 16. Users cannot browse the Global Address List in Entourage (that is, >> scroll the Global Address List from A to Z). > > You can't do that in OWA 2000 either. In fact, you'll find that most > LDAP-based address books don't do browsing. Mozilla KINDA gets around this > by using '*' as a wild card, but then the directory has to allow for this. > >> >> 17. Entourage does not support multiple Calendar or Contacts folders. >> This applies to Delegation and public folders as well as to the main account. > > Nor does OWA 2000 fully, if at all. In my experience the answer is no. > >> >> 18. Entourage does not support setting permissions. Working with >> Exchange >> Server 34 > > Nor does OWA 2000, which is a guide to what you can do in E'rage > >> >> 19. Entourage does not support disabling the Entourage user interface >> based on permissions. > > That's because E'rage is not just an exchange client. It would really > be...inconvenient, for users, to suddenly not be able to use your OTHER > email accounts because of a setting on an Exchange server. That's something > that people tend to forget. E'rage is *more* than an exchange client, and so > it has to make some compromises. > > But I'm curious, what part of the interface would you want disabled? > >> >> 20. Entourage does not support mapping from subscribed public folders in >> Entourage to public folder favorites in Outlook. > > Two different paradigms for getting to the same thing. > >> >> 21. Entourage does not support Outlook forms, voting buttons, RTF >> message >> formatting, or receipt tracking. > > Nothing but Outlook supports RTF, and that's an Exchange issue. The Exchange > server people are the only ones who can change that. Use HTTP, and the world > can read your email. > > Entourage *does* support return receipts, just not via a button. You have to > add the 'return-receipt-to' optional header to the account. I do it, works > nicely. In general, receipts are TOTALLY unreliable outside of a LAN mail > environment, and E'rage has to play there as well. > > I'm not sure about voting and forms in OWA 2000, but if it doesn't work > there, then it's definitely not going to work in E'rage either. > >> >> 22. Entourage does not support server-side rules (including >> out-of-office >> messages). Entourage users connecting to an Exchange 2003 server can use >> Outlook Web Access for out-of-office messages. > > It *supports* them, you just can't create or edit them, which sucks, > admittedly. But then again, you can't create or edit them with OWA 2000, so > again. > > The out of office thing is a rather dangerous thing in the Internet mail > world, ask anyone on a high traffic mailing list, so again, there's the > conundrum of having to live in both worlds, but yes, if OWA 200 supports it, > E'rage should as well. > >> >> 23. Entourage does not support password expiration notification or the >> ability to change the user account password. > > That's funny, I get notices all the time. Changing your exchange password is > a bit of pita, I just use OWA, and yeah, that should be fixed. > >> >> 24. Entourage does not support quota management. > > Define "Support" in this case. I get quota messages jes' peachy. I delete > things, and it's all good. > >> >> 25. Entourage does not support synchronizing Tasks or Notes to Exchange >> servers. > > Nor does OWA 2000. I agree that it would be nice if E'rage supported MORE > Exchange 2003 features, but supporting both feature sets when your UI is not > as fluid as a web browser's is tricky. > > I really wish that OWA 2000 wasn't such a bastard stepchild. > > john -- Dennis T Cheung | [EMAIL PROTECTED] | AIM: dtc | http://dennistcheung.com This message is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confer no rights. -- To unsubscribe: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> archives: <http://www.mail-archive.com/entourage-talk%40lists.letterrip.com/> old-archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/entourage-talk%40lists.boingo.com/> -- To unsubscribe: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> archives: <http://www.mail-archive.com/entourage-talk%40lists.letterrip.com/> old-archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/entourage-talk%40lists.boingo.com/>
