Microsoft is wrong: The new Outlook for Windows is not ready for prime time

[wojtek]

Desktop/Classic Outlook

I meant Outlook Express (the one bundled with the Windows) - I assumed it would be more clear from the context.

Sure, if you're a gmail or POP3/IMAP user and not in the MS ecosystem, those features may not matter to you. But that MS ecosystem, starting around Exchange Server and Office, is to the competition as a jet plane is to a bicycle when you need to get stuff done, build complex documents, and conduct business.

I *HATE* pseudo "ecosystems"... it's just a fancy monicker to creating incompatible walled garden, that's sole purpose is locking-in users so they can't migrate off...

 

[GraniteStateColin]

I meant Outlook Express (the one bundled with the Windows) - I assumed it would be more clear from the context.

I *HATE* pseudo "ecosystems"... it's just a fancy monicker to creating incompatible walled garden, that's sole purpose is locking-in users so they can't migrate off...

Yeah, Outlook Express was never of much value (but about like Thunderbird, perhaps a small step below Thunderbird), just trying to gain on the Outlook brand, which deservers its position as the most powerful email system on the planet.

But I don't understand the criticism of the existence of ecosystems. That's not the same as a walled garden at all. A walled garden is exclusionary (hence "walled"). What is the alternative to an ecosystem for a large organization that would be better than a smooth working ecosystem? Obviously any company is going to put more effort to ensure they products work well with their own other products, and shouldn't they?

OneDrive works with everything, because it's embedded into the OS in recent versions of Windows, but other MS apps leverage this integration better. Same with SharePoint, Teams, Office, Exchange, Outlook, etc. All of those apps work well with everything, but work better with other MS products because MS puts in the effort to make that happen. Nothing stopping other companies from doing the same, but MS does it better.

Seems to me the alternative would be something like the Linux world on PCs (not Android -- Google has locked that down far more than MS has locked Windows), where everything is open source, so everything kind-of works with everything, but only for users willing to put in a huge amount of effort compared with the Windows counterparts, hence its appeal to some engineers (who enjoy the challenge of putting in that effort) but not to the mass market who lacks the skills or time to spend doing all that extra work.

 

[wojtek]

OneDrive works with everything, because it's embedded into the OS in recent versions of Windows, but other MS apps leverage this integration better. Same with SharePoint, Teams, Office, Exchange, Outlook, etc. All of those apps work well with everything, but work better with other MS products because MS puts in the effort to make that happen. Nothing stopping other companies from doing the same, but MS does it better.

I disagree. OneDrive works where there is OneDrive app because there is no open api that could be used to develop the app. Same for rest of the apps. As for Office - MS made it's format so convoluted that we had monopoly to use it and only recently more and more people use open formats (especially public offices providing forms to print in PDF, sic!). There is one thing using open standard / providing an open API and creating own implementations that offer smooth experience and there is another creating locked-down "ecosystem" where it only works when you use apps from the MS... even exchange alternative implementations are somewhat "hacky" at best.

Seems to me the alternative would be something like the Linux world on PCs (not Android -- Google has locked that down far more than MS has locked Windows), where everything is open source, so everything kind-of works with everything, but only for users willing to put in a huge amount of effort compared with the Windows counterparts, hence its appeal to some engineers (who enjoy the challenge of putting in that effort) but not to the mass market who lacks the skills or time to spend doing all that extra work.

I guess you haven't use Linux in a while?

Besides with all that money gained by being monopoly in the '90s and early '00s MS had enough to spend to polish the experience. Contrary to Linux, which is based mostly on os contributions (talking about user-facing stuff, not the server-focused one that is quite often driven by for-profit Canonical or RedHat... but they do still publish it as opensource so everyone benefits)

 

[GraniteStateColin]

I disagree. OneDrive works where there is OneDrive app because there is no open api that could be used to develop the app. Same for rest of the apps. As for Office - MS made it's format so convoluted that we had monopoly to use it and only recently more and more people use open formats (especially public offices providing forms to print in PDF, sic!). There is one thing using open standard / providing an open API and creating own implementations that offer smooth experience and there is another creating locked-down "ecosystem" where it only works when you use apps from the MS... even exchange alternative implementations are somewhat "hacky" at best.


I guess you haven't use Linux in a while?

Besides with all that money gained by being monopoly in the '90s and early '00s MS had enough to spend to polish the experience. Contrary to Linux, which is based mostly on os contributions (talking about user-facing stuff, not the server-focused one that is quite often driven by for-profit Canonical or RedHat... but they do still publish it as opensource so everyone benefits)

OneDrive, Dropbox, and Box all work fine with their own apps and with apps from other companies. They do this because all work with the Windows API for file access and add themselves to the Explorer and File windows in a standardized way. Overall, OneDrive does more and better integrates than the others, but it's not exclusive to OneDrive. For example, Dropbox has deposit folders (share a link and anyone can drop files into it, but no one except the recipient can see the contents), which OneDrive does not. Dropbox also supports LAN-based replication, where OneDrive requires a manual copy for that or forces users to replicate via the cloud -- a real problem for low or metered bandwidth users.

For the Office formats, you're conflating various time periods. DOC documents were convoluted and proprietary, and possibly and the very first version of DOCX was too, but current DOCX is open and it has been for well over a decade. As file formats go, I still prefer WordPerfect's for its stream orientation (e.g., if bolding some letters or words, there's a character at which the bold code starts, and another at which it ends, nice and simple, easy to find and remove or change). Word's object-oriented design sounds good, but it's a pain for actually working in compared with WordPerfect's stream approach: hard to find formatting, even with Word's Formatting panel, and even harder to adjust without breaking something -- try fixing a broken numbered list in Word, ouch, but at least it supports complex lists, OpenOffice/LibreOffice/Google Docs don't even support these more complex features, especially Google Docs, which is more like Notepad than it is like Word .

MS WAS (past tense) rough to do business with. Now, I worry that it's bending so far over in the other direction to be friendly to its competitors that it's hurting its customers. We customers win when companies fight hard for our business, not when they sideline their competitive natures to collaborate. There's a fine line between working together to establish standards that can help customers and collusion that hurts customers. I also think Nadella is so cloud and service focused that he doesn't believe UI or end user UX matters. I don't know how else to explain the kind of painful-for-users mistakes that MS continues to make under his leadership (while obviously doing amazingly well in other areas, as indicated by the MS cloud and AI growth and their stock performance).

 

[Baer]

I have been a Microsoft fan since DOS, I am a certified MS teacher which I do as a volunteer, I am a retired Sr Executive. I own a bunch of M S stock, AND, I HATE the new Outlook. It got loaded on my main computer and I have been using it for about the last week. I HATE IT!! What the hell do they think pushing this garbage on us.
I am not even going to start listing the issues I have with it. It is so bad that I may just go and buy a MAC (wow, can't believe I said that)