Outlook Express gets laid off
Spinner
Birmingham, UK
Apparently Microsoft has confirmed that is has no intention of further developing or adding to Outlook Express. OE (Outlook Express), is one of the most widely used email clients on the home computing and corporate front, this announcement will no doubt come as a dissapointment to people, especially those who can't afford or are not willing to use Microsoft Office's Outlook (OE's costly sister client).
However, the software giant does add, even though it has no plans to build on OE, it certainly isn't ready to discard it.
The full report:
http://www.zdnet.com.au/newstech/ebusiness/story/0,2000048590,20277192,00.htm
However, the software giant does add, even though it has no plans to build on OE, it certainly isn't ready to discard it.
"[Outlook Express] just sits where it is," said Dan Leach, lead product manager for Microsoft's information worker product management group. "The technology doesn't go away, but no new work is being done. It is consumer e-mail in an early iteration, and our investment in the consumer space is now focused around Hotmail and MSN. That's where we're putting the emphasis in terms of new investment and new development work."
The full report:
http://www.zdnet.com.au/newstech/ebusiness/story/0,2000048590,20277192,00.htm
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Comments
But then again, I am a geek who wants his email as opposed to a Personal Confuser User desiring to get everything from the hottest gossip on vaguely popular fashion trends, to where venus is located in THEIR astrology! Damn you pisces for screwing my email! I'd trout-slap you, but I'm afraid the effect is null as you are already a trout! Prepare for being manslapped!
1 - try to buy web browsing / e-mail client software from competing company Netscape.
2 - competing company says "No Thanks."
3 - Big Bill has an artery pop in his forehead
4 - M$ designs "superior" browser and e-mail client, and "bundles" it with their OS. (Where it says "bundle", replace with "shove down the throats of consumers.")
5 - M$ buys Hotmail, the world's best and most popular web based e-mail service, making some entrepreneurs rich, and 7 million users at the time...concerned.
6 - M$ slowly pecks away at free features of Hotmail, while constantly junk-mailing all users, pushing their own products.
7 - Netscape acquired by AOL, and becomes the backbone of the most successful online e-mail / internet provider service in the US.
8 - Big Bill has another artery erupt.
8.5 - Some Anti-Trust court case thingie
9 - MSN internet service launched.
10 - MSN Messenger service launched / bundled / shoved down consumers' throats to compete with / crush AOL Instant Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, and ICQ.
11 - Years after having e-mail clients, browsers and instant messengers full of busg and security holes shoved down our throats, consumers now mindlessly use these free products in our everyday life.
12 - Today - M$ starts to queitly discontinue free versions of products.
13 - Next year - huge spike in downloads of shareware mail clients, browsers and IM's. Huge spike in hacked copies of M$ versions of same. Followed thereafter by huge spike in prices of OS packages.
Dexter....
Let's all praise netscapes death. It couldn't render code to save its life. After building your 100th website, it's amazing how pissed you become at modifying your pages for an engine that didn't do what it was supposed to.
For your average user, server side application hosting is the future. Terminals will be thin clients, with applications like email being controlled remotely. Most people will have wireless devices, and content will be processed remotely and distributed. This allows developers to control the user enviroment more, and distribute the loads away from the client terminal to remote locations. Its already in use, just not on a wide scale.
In a forum like this, 99% of you guys will say I'm crazy. But in reality, your a very very small portion of a much larger user base. There will always be niche groups like gamers, developers, programmers, and other professionals that require a large resource locally. But we are going to see dramatic changes in the next 5-10 years on how information is distributed.
I ask you this, what if running a remote email client was as seemless as starting OE? What if the program resided on a remote location, and only the display content was served to you?? This opens up alot of possibilitys. Sit down at a public terminal, and your personal desktop pops up in front of you. Sound interesting?? It does to business men who travel yet have a hard time maintaining there notebook PC's. Face it, your average user is.. stupid... and not only do they not understand how a computer works or how to maintain it, but they don't ever want to know.
Don't get me wrong, current web based email solutions are awkward and lack key features. But what if I had a remote client that did all the features your current pop email did?? The difference?? You connect with a lightweight, power conservative device and not a 'computer'
Like the idea or not, its comming. Lets just do our best to make open standards, and not buy into the microsoft monopoly structures.
This had been predicted for years.
It'll happen right after the True Paperless Office happens....Never!
Mozilla is the way to go for both browsing and e-mail.
My understanding is that IE will be written more tightly into Windows(so far that has not been ruled out and that is what I have been able to find out so far reliably) and that Windows will be more media intense as it is built into the "box" or "bag" of the operating system. I would expect that. It is just barely possible that email will become part of XP in coming versions, with a different name or more fully integrated.
To which Omega65 said:
Yeah, go read any Heinlein novel based on earth/luna from the 50's and 60's.
It is already starting, there are services available to store your documents on line, use your e-mail online, manage contacts online, even keep your calendar online and access it anywhere. That is great for business travellers...unless you want to edit a document while you are on the plane, or prepare an e-mail for a client on the plane.
Having everything online is going to come at a price though. You want to access a "public terminal" or even use wireless in an airport? Great, $1 a minute please. Sure, I guess they will have internet access in commerical planes soon...at $25 for 15 minutes, then $1.59 every minute thereafter. And until there are dozens upon dozens of public terminals in every public place that someone might conecievably want to access their files, you are going to have to stand in line for the privilege of forking over tat cash.
Dexter...