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Twitter Users Want Microsoft to Fix 'Outlook'

by Terrence O'Brien on June 27, 2009 at 09:00 AM

We're not gonna lie. We can't stand 'Outlook.' Or its Mac-based sister app, 'Entourage,' either. There just isn't aren't enough words that can convey how we feel about this stalwart of the corporate world. It's a shame, too, because we really are actually quite fond of the rest of the 'Microsoft Office' Suite.

One big complaint about Outlook is how it handles HTML-formatted e-mails. The problem is that, when updating Outlook to the 2007 version, Microsoft decided to stop using the same (and already quite flawed) rendering engine that powered 'Internet Explorer,' and opted instead to use the HTML-formatting capabilities of 'Word 2007.' It's a bit like getting coal for Christmas, and, when you complain, having it replaced with a flaming bag of dog crap.

The move to the Word-based engine severed 'Outlook''s support of cascading style sheets (CSS: a markup language for controlling the layout, colors, fonts, etc. of a Web page), and also causes problems for images, especially those in the background. This results in this travesty, which compares Outlook 2000 with the beta of Outook 2010.

Outlook 2007's release led users to the Internet with a fervor usually reserved for battling a stolen election. So, many assumed that with the next iteration of its inescapable e-mail app, Microsoft would address the issue. But rather than switch back to 'IE' to handle in-e-mail HTML, 'Outlook 2010' will simply use the updated tools available in 'Word 2010' -- which suffers from all the same problems as 'Word 2007.' It's like replacing that flaming bag of poop with a flaming bag of fresher poop.

Microsoft has taken its flagship communications app and turned it into such an atrocious piece of software that people are willing to take time out of their busy days to tweet about it -- by the thousands. Over 16,000 have tweeted their grievances as of this writing. They're all being collected and displayed in real time at fixoutlook.org.

William Kennedy, Corporate Vice President, Office Communications and Forms Team, posted on the Outlook Team Blog that the choice to continue to use Word as the backbone of Outlook was about creating a rich and familiar environment for composing messages. He also dismissed The "Email Standards Project," the organization behind fixoutlook.org, saying they in no way represented a standards governing body, or industry consensus about how HTML e-mails should be rendered. Though we'd argue that HTML should be handled the same way across any application -- Web, e-mail, or document.

If you feel like joining the army of complainers, all you have to do is quit tagging everything with "#iranelection" long enough to send a message with a link to http://fixoutlook.org. Or you can do both: "Taking down two oppressive regimes at once! #iranelection http://fixoutlook.org/ Twitter FTW!" [From: FixOutlook.org, via TechCrunch]

Tags: fix outlook, FixOutlook, fixoutlook.org, microblogging, microsoft, microsoft office, microsoft office 2010, MicrosoftOffice, MicrosoftOffice2010, outlook, outlook 2010, Outlook2010, top, twitter, word

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