Microsoft No Longer Developing Outlook ExpressThursday August 14th, 2003Several people wrote in to tell us that Microsoft is not doing any new development work on Outlook Express, the company's free mail and newsgroups client, which is bundled with both Internet Explorer and Windows. The emphasis for home users will now be placed on Hotmail and MSN, while corporations will be reminded that they should have been using Outlook all along. Many MozillaZine readers have noted the opportunity that this presents for Mozilla Thunderbird, the Mozilla project's standalone mail and newsgroups program. While the first milestone of Thunderbird has only recently been released, the application is based on the mature codebase of the Mozilla Application Suite's Mail & Newsgroups component. Microsoft's cancellation of further Outlook Express development follows on from the company's announcement that it will offer no further upgrades to the standalone Windows version of Internet Explorer and its decision to end development of IE for Mac OS X. Update: J. A. Prufrock wrote in to tell us that Microsoft is now saying Outlook Express will continue to be developed after all. Microsoft's about-turn in its public statements is nothing new: shortly after the news broke that there would be no further standalone versions of IE for Windows, the company stressed that it was in fact too early to discuss its long-term plans for the browser. With this last movement, MS seems to be focusing on services and subscriptions for the consumer market, and trust its previous software development may have gained enough traction for them to move this same consumers to paid services. This may prove that, logically, there is no real money on free consumer software but as a "need maker", at least for MS or whatever developer. of course this is not the case for enterprise software where services may easily become the ROI on initial development. Anyway, these are good news for Mozilla products as there will appear a whole new market segment left alone with a non mature product. Hope Mozilla mail client may come soon. At the rate MS is going, I wouldn't be surprised if it ends up offering Windows itself as a web subscription service, so that if you don't pay a monthly subscription fee for both Windows and MSN you won't be able to use your PC. This will be done, of course, "to help users keep their versions of Windows up to date and secure" and "to make sure that the user's ISP is fully interoperable with their OS" (just like my school raised graduate tuition rates "to help students graduate faster") Well, I don't think this news will cause many OE users to switch to Mozilla just yet. Eventually, they will upgrade to a new version of Windows or buy a new PC with the new Windows on it. If they find no free email client on it, then a good number will be angry enough to switch. This Mozillazine article isn't guilty of talking about killing, but the linked article is. By the same logic, you could say that Mozilla (Seamonkey) and Netscape are dead. What's stopping on IE and OE is new development. Most users don't care about new development (they care so little they don't even install important updates). I think the amount of opportunity this creates is rather limited. Current IE/OE users won't dump it just because they won't be able to get a new version, and when Windows users get a new computer or whatever, they will still get Microsoft-provided email, it'll just be MSN instead of OE. Netscape is dead. Unless something has changed in the past 2 weeks, Mozilla is still under new development. And there will be no Outlook Express one can install on Windows 2004, so yes, they are killing Outlook Express for non-legacy platforms. I said "Mozilla (Seamonkey)", as in, it doesn't look like there's going to be future development on the application suite. Of course Firebird and Thunderbird etc are being actively developed... Killing it for non-legacy platforms is rather different than "killing it". Assuming it's not in Windows 2004, there's still a few years (even though Microsoft doesn't want there to be) in the "legacy" platforms... Netscape is dead in the same sense - however, for people that aren't keeping up with Netscape-the-organisation events, Netscape 7.1 is a new version that they're distributing. What is MSN Explorer exactly? I've never really understood where it stands when microsoft has MSN.com and Internet Explorer "What is MSN Explorer exactly? I've never really understood where it stands when microsoft has MSN.com and Internet Explorer" The simplest (though perhaps not the most correct) answer is that the MSN software (it's not called MSN Explorer any more) is to MSN what the AOL software is to America Online. MSN Explorer 6 (named because AOL was at that version at the time) came out in late 2000. It was available as a free download but required a Microsoft Passport (or an MSN Internet Access subscription) to use. It offered links to various MSN services, built in email via Hotmail and a My Sidebar rip-off called My Stuff (though it was arguably better). A minor update, 6.1, came out in early 2001 and shipped with Windows XP. MSN Explorer 7 came out in late 2001 (the same time as AOL 7) and offered various improvements. It launched at the same time as Windows XP and the redesigned MSN.com. The big change came when MSN 8 (not Explorer any more) came out in late 2002 (the same time as AOL 8). You have to subscribe to use it, either by using MSN Internet Access or paying an additional fee in addition to your ISP charges (this latter option is the only way to use the service in countries where MSN doesn't offer Internet access, such as the UK). MSN 8 is the most major upgrade to date with various improvements. The My Stuff bar has been renamed to the Dashboard (if you've ever seen a leaked Longhorn build, it has a similar feature). Here's a review http://www.winsupersite.com/reviews/msn8.asp which also has some details about MSN Explorer 6 and 7. An enhanced version of MSN 8 came out a couple of months ago http://www.wininformant.com/Articles/Index.cfm?ArticleID=39208 (about the same time as AOL 8.5 Plus). AOL 9 Optimized came out a couple of weeks ago, so MSN 9 must be on the way soon http://www.neowin.net/comments.php?id=12378. Something like that anyway. Alex Ah, being a fellow brit I thought microsoft had given up on internet access years ago, after about 4 tries are relaunching their service. I think Compuserve has more users than AOL when they finally quit. I used to think of MSN Explorer as a newbie version of IE, but what I've read about it recently didn't fit that description (like having to subscribe to it). If MSN are in the internet access market, then I am surprised AOL agreeds to stop developing Mozilla. OK, they might have rights to internet explorer for the next 5 years or so, but what then? Ian "Ah, being a fellow brit I thought microsoft had given up on internet access years ago, after about 4 tries are relaunching their service." MSN pulled out of several markets, including the UK, after the whole online-service-to-rival-AOL-and-CompuServe-and-maybe-even-replace-the-Internet thing failed. However, they stuck around as a largely regular ISP in places like the US. Meanwhile, Microsoft concentrated on developing MSN.com into a portal and started branding everything in site (Hotmail etc.) with the MSN name. Over the last couple of years, Microsoft have been strongly promoting MSN Internet Access again (hence MSN Explorer etc.), particularly focussing on converting AOL users (in the US, AOL is the nuymber one ISP, MSN is number two). With the launch of MSN 8, you can no subscribe to them in the UK again but they don't provide Internet access. "I think Compuserve has more users than AOL when they finally quit." I think CompuServe has less users than MSN. CompuServe is still around in both its traditional form (CompuServe Classic - no longer taking new members) and its AOL lite form (CompuServe 2000 - but this is no longer available in many places, including the UK). They haven't updated the Classic software for years and the last CompuServe 2000 revision - CompuServe 7, which uses Gecko - was probably the last. So essentially AOL killed CompuServe, which is a shame as they really are a part of computing history, dating back to 1969 or something. (I should really be fair to AOL here: America Online was considered quite innovative when it first launched in 1989. It was originally only available to Mac and Apple II users and was just one of the online services offered by Quantum Computer Services, which changed its named to America Online in 1991. Contrary to popular belief, Quantum Computer Services was not founded by Steve Case.) "I used to think of MSN Explorer as a newbie version of IE, but what I've read about it recently didn't fit that description (like having to subscribe to it)." It is aimed at ex-AOLers (or being fairer, ordinary consumers who don't care about the underlying technology) and most subscribers use AOL for their ISP needs as well. As for MSN as a whole, I think Microsoft's eventual aim is for it to be the consumer services division of Microsoft - where you'll go for your Internet, email, messenging and calendaring needs etc. "If MSN are in the internet access market, then I am surprised AOL agreeds to stop developing Mozilla. OK, they might have rights to internet explorer for the next 5 years or so, but what then?" Seven actually but you're right. AOL haven't really thought this through. Steve Case and others realised as early as the mid-nineties that Microsoft is their real rival but it seems that the current management aren't taking the long-term view. I think, at some point, they will regret relying on Microsoft for their browsing (and possibly media) technologies and will wish they still had Gecko (of course, there will be nothing but pride preventing them from using it). Alex Well, this is both good and bad for Mozilla. The good news is, it opens up the market. Despite Microsoft's best efforts, I know of very few people who actually use Outlook for Mail/Schedule Management (other than myself, but that was before I used Mozilla). It opens up the market for products such as Firebird (Mozilla Browser), Thunderbird (Mozilla Mail/news) and Sunbird (Mozilla Calendar[?]) as standalone tools. Also, the Suite, with its seamless integration However, it is also bad news. It means that the pressure is on, if Mozilla wants to claim a decent portion of the market. Since neither Fb, Tb, or Sb are ready for full deployment, the Mozilla Foundation has a lot of "catching up" to do. The Suite is excellent and seamless, but still is not popular enough for commercial use. Argh!!! MSN suck suck! I have been comfortable with Outlook Express because it is so nice to use for Newsgroup while Thunderbird is still not ready for primetime. I had been so frustrated with Thunderbird as both Newsgroup and Emails. Hopefully, this will put pressure on the Mozilla Foundation to do something about it. Well, I still sometimes use Netscape Messenger for Newsgroup needs and Netscape Navigator 3's newsgroup client was also very good. The reason I had to switch from using Netscape Navigator 3's mail client was that there were no user profiles and I could not password-protect my e-mails. So I resorted to Microsoft Exchange 4 mail client. Later I used Microsoft Exchange 5, then after Windows Me emerged, there was no Microsoft Exchange client, so I had to begin using Outlook 2000, which I found to be quite good. Now I'm stuck with Outlook xp, which is horrenduously unstable. A year or two ago @home I resorted to using Outlook Express 5 for newsgroup needs in a different computer where there was another active user who used Outlook Express. I could have used Netscape 4.08 /Messenger, but at some point I decided not to create any new profiles there, because the reason then was that hard drive space was low and the computer had a very active user. And Netscape Communicator's profiles are not password-protected. So the reason to use OE was to have my newsgroup activities password-protected. /* end of message */ Hmm... I know a *lot* of people who use OE, just because it was there on their machine when they first tried the Net -among which they are many who don't even know other MUA exist. I hang around a lot on Usenet-fr, and the stats are clear: more than two thirds of the newsreader used are OE, despite an important geek public. This news does not surprise me. OE was originally created so that IE would have a companion e-mail client like Netscape did. Now that Microsoft is no longer focused on IE or Netscape, it's natural that OE bites it, too, especially given that OE totally sucks. no it doesn't suck. it was everything most end users needed: a simple email client integrated with their browser and address book. it may suck to developers and huge computer nerds like us, but i have to agree with the person above who thinks no OE user will even notice. Yeah, it's "simple" with OE to send badly malformatted messages, if you keep the default configurations of that program. Here are some tips on how to configure it to get some semblance of proper style, though a third-party add-on (OE QuoteFix) is needed for fully correct formatting. http://mailformat.dan.info/config/oex.html "no it doesn't suck. it was everything most end users needed..." Um, it gave users dozens of devestating worms and viruses and it did next to nothing for the spam problem. The two things that email users most need, security from exploits and freedom from junkmail, were completely absent or sorely lacking. Even causual users are quite embarrassed when they start getting emails from friends and family saying "you send me a virus" and even casual users get spam and curse it every single day. OE is most certainly _not_ everything most end users needed. That's just a silly claim. --Asa OE doesn't _totally_ suck. Having it in the hands of a clueless user can be dangerous because it's using IE to render mails but for a semi-poweruser OE has some useful features that MailNews/Thunderbird lacks and wont have in the near future: bug 75866 - Viewing message for very short time shouldn't mark it as read bug 30057 - Use one Local Mail tree for all POP3 accounts bug 43278 - Crossposts (same Message-ID) not marked as read in other groups Also (should be in bugzilla somewhere): * No button and keyboard shortcut to perform send&receive of _all_ mail accounts that have "Include this account when receiving mail or synchronizing" checkbox checked. Send/Recv button with dropdown of: "Send and Receive All" (default), "Receive All", "Send All", separator, individual accounts list... * Only one signature per account, can't insert other signatures by simly goint to menu Insert -> Signatures -> ... * Saving to drafts folder doesn't mark the draft as unread. * Can't search for text in Newgroups posts body. * Password can't be typed in on mail account creation. To sum up, OE has its strenghts and weaknesses (more the later though) and MailNews/Thunderbird have theirs. And Thunderbird doesn't work with Hotmail/MSN. That's the only thing stopping me (and probably lots of others) from switching to Thunderbird. Well, it is entirely up to Hotmail (owned by Microsoft) to decide which programs can and cannot be used to access Hotmail, i.e. it's nothing that the Thunderbird project can influence. Yes, this is also the reason why I use OE as opposed to TBird, its Hotmail integration. and its relatively good IMAP support (with a few tweaks here and there) In actual fact, since i have a number of POP3/IMAP as well as HTTP accounts, I use a combo of OE and Pegasus Mail. And use each as nessasary. OE is for "generall day to day use" IMAP/HTTP use then periodically I fire up Pegasus to archive the mail. Pegasus is VERY good for archiving, i have mail in my mailbox from 1997, and i have a way of converting the EML fixes in OE to UNIX mailbox files for Pegasus, as well as a complex filter system to filter messages into place. OE also has an easy way to move the mail store, and I have all the mails stored in a directory on my C:DRIVE (Mailbox) and when i need to reformat my HD, all I need to do is backup that directory. And when u reinstall, its a simple case fo pointing OE to use the previous mailstore, even Outlook is not so elegant. Soo in a way i will miss OE, but if TBird gets an extension to allow access to hotmail, then i will switch immeadiately. Yes, this is also the reason why I use OE as opposed to TBird, its Hotmail integration. and its relatively good IMAP support (with a few tweaks here and there) In actual fact, since i have a number of POP3/IMAP as well as HTTP accounts, I use a combo of OE and Pegasus Mail. And use each as nessasary. OE is for "generall day to day use" IMAP/HTTP use then periodically I fire up Pegasus to archive the mail. Pegasus is VERY good for archiving, i have mail in my mailbox from 1997, and i have a way of converting the EML fixes in OE to UNIX mailbox files for Pegasus, as well as a complex filter system to filter messages into place. OE also has an easy way to move the mail store, and I have all the mails stored in a directory on my C:DRIVE (Mailbox) and when i need to reformat my HD, all I need to do is backup that directory. And when u reinstall, its a simple case fo pointing OE to use the previous mailstore, even Outlook is not so elegant. Soo in a way i will miss OE, but if TBird gets an extension to allow access to hotmail, then i will switch immeadiately. Well if that's the only thing stopping you you should give Hotmail Popper http://www.boolean.ca/hotpop/ a try (it's free), or if you're willing to spend a little money (about $20) you could get Web2Pop http://www.jmasoftware.com/english/index.html Both let you treat Hotmail accounts as POP3, with the latter also supporting just about any type of webmail account you can imagine (ie. AOL, Yahoo, Excite, etc.) This means that you can treat them just like any other email account in Thunderbird/MozMail. I would think if Thunderbird wants to have a competitive edge in the mail/news market in the near future, it would probably be a good idea to build technologies like those mentioned above into the app. "Conveniently access all your webmail accounts at once" and "Store all of your webmail messages locally" sound like pretty good marketing points to me. Some time ago (before IEx/OEx 6) in a different context I compiled a list of pros and cons about OEx, which is still valid for me: http://people.freenet.de/ogiesen/oex-procon.html Looks like I'll finally have to stop hoping for cure regarding the items on the con-list. BTW: What client does MS recommend using for NNTP in the future? #34 Changing email client also means changing habitsby max_headroom Friday August 15th, 2003 7:41 AM I switched from Netscape 4.? to Opera ~when Netscape 4.72 came out because it was buggy and slow. I switched from Opera to IE/OE when I started to use newsgroups because Opera sucked when dealing with newsgroups. IE/OE were fine until I started to get annoyed of not seeing my newsgroup postings and of having to define complex filtering rules to get rid of Spam. I was also missing the TABbed browsing I had when I tried Opera so... I switched to Mozilla ~2 months ago and am more than happy with its anti-spam engine and its excellent newsgroup behaviour. Yes, I found it weird to see all my accounts (about 10), each with its own Inbox, Trash, Sent, ... in the left pane, but I'me getting used to it. The same could be said about the other "features" you're talking about: you just have to get used to the new look and feel. You can't have everything. You have to make compromises and weight the value of each features. Personally, I put anti-spam up top, ease of use next and the rest after. I find Mozilla quite stable, fast and user friendly. I appreciate to have the same integrated client on both my Windows and Linux boxes and you can't beat the feature/price ratio ! I disagree that bug "75866" and "30057" are bugs... They are prefrences. By default Mozilla/Firebird puts mail in separate directory structures -- but you are free to define some trivial filters to consolidate them. The mark as read thing is something that I find convienient -- maybe you should have the option of setting a delay period. All of the things that you listed are pet peeves or personal prefrences, and none are a reason why Thunderbird/Mozilla will not succeed in the marketplace. OE does NOT suck. In fact, it is arguably the best email/news client out there. Simple, handles just about everything you throw at it. POP, SMTP, IMAP, etc... The only reason I switched to Thunderbird is that it has the best junk mail detector, bar none. That and the promise that it'll get better. OE alone is an awful newsreader. It's very easy to use, compared to others, true. But it provokes bad quoting, top posting, and so on. It's decent with OE Quotefix, but AFAIK, it still lacks many important features, such as the supersedes. It will be great if Thunderbird can be as easy to use but more Netiquette-compliant. The last update for it (in WinXP SP1) fixed most of the problems, rendering OE QuoteFix and other similar hacks obsolete. Oh and the startup speed of OE is second to none. "OE does NOT suck. In fact, it is arguably the best email/news client out ... The only reason I switched to Thunderbird is that it has the best junk mail detector." So you've made the determination that junk-mail/spam is a big enough pain in the ass and that OE doesn't solve that major problem for you and thus you switched to Thunderbird? Spam is the bigges usability nightmare for the entire email system, right? Do you think you're alone in having a problem with spam? If not then isn't it likely that OE's lack of strong anti-spam features is going to be a problem for lots of other people? If so then isn't it the case that it's really quite difficult to argue that OE is the best email client when it fails to adequately handle email's biggest problem, spam, for a significant number of users? (and what about all the outlook viruses?) --Asa Spam mgmt doesn't need to be bundled with an email client. In fact, it shouldn't be. Spam blocking is best delivered as an add-on such as Cloudmark for Outlook Express (which is better anyway). And certainly an email client that can't be used with Hotmail has issues. At the risk of sounding like a petulant toddler, I must ask a cursory question to both of your statements: "Why?" Most importantly, why should it be required for an e-mail client to be compatible with a Hotmail account, or any other proprietory e-mail protocol for that matter? It's not required. But Thunderbird isn't of much use to me if it doesn't work with my e-mail account, is it? "But Thunderbird isn't of much use to me if it doesn't work with my [microsoft proprietary] e-mail account, is it?" When Microsoft starts serving your email data in a standard email format then I suspect Thunderbird will be able to read it. I certainly wouldn't trade top-of-the-line client spam filtering and a decent ISP for a spam-filled and space-limited free web-based email account running inside a client that's responsible for spreading more viruses, trojans and worms than any other sofware product on the planet. --Asa That's like saying when webmasters start making pages in 100% pure standard code then Mozilla will be able to read it, but not otherwise. Fact is, ISP's change. And I don't want to change my e-mail. It's not spam filled, there's a crude filter on that. It's not space-limited on OE because it downloads the messages then deletes them. And I have not once received a virus through it. No, that's like saying that when webmasters start making pages in HTML then Mozilla will be able to read it, but not otherwise. There is a difference between being able to handle code soup and being able to handle whimsical arbitrary protocols. Let me put it this way: Your primary e-mail account suddenly doesn't work with Thunderbird for whatever reason. Do you switch e-mail accounts or do you switch applications? There are so many free email services that allows both POP3 and web access out there. Hotmail is appearantly your choice, but why not choose another email service that is free *and* supports standards? Just to make this clear... I'm not faulting anyone for Thunderbird not having Hotmail support, but to say that I should switch e-mail accounts so that I can use Thunderbird is a little backwards. If I had the choice now, I wouldn't get a Hotmail account. But since I have one and it's what I've been using as my primary e-mail for the past couple years, I'm pretty much stuck with it. If you think you are stuck with your Hotmail account, do the following: 1) Get a better free e-mail account that supports IMAP (e.g. from Fastmail http://www.fastmail.fm) 2) Get the internet domain of you choice (e.g. for 8.95$/year from Go Daddy http://www.godaddy.com) 3) Use a free DNS and e-mail forwarding service (e.g. Zone Edit http://www.zoneedit.com) to forward your generic e-mail to your new e-mail account 4) Use the IMAP client of your choice to send and receive e-mail 5) Inform all correspondents of your new generic e-mail 6) After some time, flush your Hotmail account If ever the free email account dies or becomes a premium service, you can easily switch to the next one without ever changing your e-mail address again. Now, with AOL's deal to liscense IE's rendering engine royalty-free for seven more years, do they get to use the new version when Longhorn comes out? And if a new version of IE (and its rendering engine) is only going to appear on Longhorn, doesn't that mean AOL would have to create an entirely seperate version of their client software just to be compatible with the new system? Is it just me or did AOL really turn the other cheek for Microsoft to slap them over twice? The embedded IE in AOL simply uses whatever Internet Explorer is installed on the system. (It uses the IE embedding ActiveX control, like most programs that embed IE do.) It doesn't actually *contain* a copy of IE, although it will install a recent version if your computer lacks one. I believe AOL 8 "requires" (read: wants) at least 5.5 and that 9.0 will install 6.0 if you don't have it. Shelving development of OE following the shelving of standalone IE really comes as no surprise to me. It was actually something I quite expected. Microsoft has been building up to this for sometime afterall with the development of it's MSN Explorer browser. It's just IE with a fancier folksier look. MSN Explorer was intergrated into Windows XP alongside IE 6, but Longhorn will showcase it even more prominently I believe. With hotmail integration in MSN Explorer there was no need for OE. Microsoft will probably also look forward to charging you a fee to access your ISP pop3 account through the integrated hotmail in MSN explorer. I think MS's point of view may be something like this: Notice how people say something is better, because it "just is". I can see some users saying MS Windows Longhorn is better cause of the newer Internet Exploder [and Lookout Expres if it included], "its just better". Users think "must upgrade", need new Exploder. But thinking the counteracting thought of "spend nothing, NOTHING" will kinda render the above almost useless. Im sure many of us are aware that are employeers already pay our wages, and arent keen on spending any more (also the result of Win98 being the most used OS to date), on any of our suggestions. So a point to the Mozilla camp. Win98 being the most O/S to date worldwide?? Really?? Thought I read the articles somewhere at Mozillazine that WinXP is... Maybe it's time for anyone to post a web statistic and find out the real truth to it. I've seen stories/stats that say WinXP has overtaken Win98, and stats that say it hasn't. From the website I work on, the stats last month are WinXP with 32% and Win98 with 29%. I think it's arguable whether or not XP has overtaken yet. I think it's only the timing that's the question though. Whatever stat you look at, WinXP's numbers are rising while 98's are falling, so if it hasn't overtaken yet, it will do. Windows XP is replacing both 95/98/ME and NT/2000, so it gets migrations from both. According to Google WinXP pushed Win98 to second place in June 2003: http://www.google.com/press/zeitgeist/zeitgeist-jun03.html And in July it gained additional 2%: http://www.google.com/press/zeitgeist.html Also, take a look at the "Web Browsers Used to Access Google" graph, the purple line indicating Gecko based browsers has made a small but visible rise upwards ;) So was it prophesized in about:mozilla page: And the beast shall be made legion. Its numbers shall be increased a thousand thousand fold. The din of a million keyboards like unto a great storm shall cover the earth, and the followers of Mammon shall tremble. from The Book of Mozilla, 3:31 (Red Letter Edition) An Internet Exploder? Wow! That's quite a product! :) http://www.ccidnet.com Site sends: Content-Type: text/plain Well, it's too late for that now. I ain't playing any more of the M$ games. I had just made the decision to stop using Outlook Express when M$ announced it will stopped continuing the Outlook Express which made me decide to start using Gecko Mail/News. Now M$ want to take back what it said. Well, it's too late now. My mind had already been made up and I'm not going to get dragged into any more of M$'s games. Adios M$!!! I think we all know that Microsoft knows the mass of people who flounder with their computers rely on them too heavily, and will only rescind open publication on subscription to return covertly and go ahead with it. I sell computers at stores and know if I told a person they could have an unsecure, more expensive machine that has one asy bill each month, or a cheap, effective machine with a 5 month learning curve (these are people who would struggle on an OSX box), the few that did buy the Linux machine (latter) would return it within days. Sadly idiots own the market and idiots fuel MS. Profit cannot stop them, they have still yet to gte into the black with the Xbox, they are slated to lose 500 million on the hardware sales alone by end of 2005, but there are more of those all the time and more games... So it looks like this is the newest control move by what many have seen coming for years, the R-a-OS Rent-an-OS. |