‘Quiet change’ to Outlook engine
p2pnet.net News:- Bill and the Boyz have made a “quiet” change in the rendering engine used by Outlook 2007, says Mary Jo Foley on ZDNet.
When “quiet” is used to describe a change implemented by one or other of the various vested corprorate interests, “quiet” usually means “sneaky” or “underhanded”.
That appears to be the way it was with the change Foley talks about, and it’s “beginning to sink in among individuals who have gotten accustomed to having the Internet Explorer (IE) engine render HTML e-mail messages, posts ,” she says. “And the reaction of many is one of anger and disbelief.
“While the IE team was soothing the tortured souls of web developers everywhere with the new, more compliant Internet Explorer 7, the Office team pulled a fast one,” she says, It was, ‘ripping out the IE-based rendering engine that Outlook has always used for email, and replacing it with … drum roll please … Microsoft Word,’ according to a post by Kevin Yank on SitePoint blogs.
“Yank continued: ‘Not only that, but this new rendering engine isn’t any better than that which Outlook previously used – indeed, it’s far worse. With this release, Outlook drops from being one of the best clients for HTML email support to the level of Lotus Notes and Eudora’.”
Nasty.
Moreover, adds ZDNet, in “Microsoft takes email design back five years,” Campaign Monitor blogger David Greniers says the rendering-engine changes ruin background images, provide poor background color support, and lack support for float or position, “completely breaking any CSS (Cascading Style Sheet) based layouts right from the word go.”
What else can you expect from morally challenged Billionaire Bill and his Merry Men as they prepare to release Vista?
And oin thatt, how well will Vista do? Not as badly as many (most?) people expect, says at least one company in an report, without disclosing who commissioned it.
However, its “Frankly there’s nothing in Vista I need at present,” says a p2pnet Reader’s Write, going on:
I’ve no driving need to even consider the OS.
Just as with all OSs in the past, you can bet this one is as buggy as a bee hive. It was rushed to the market after one turmoil and delay after another. It’s already set up to be the next XP for patches alone.
As the other poster mentioned, I’m not ready to accept the conditions of inclusive DRM, the watchdog. I’ve always had an aversion to protection schemes and that’s never changed. It has increased my dislike over the OS to have it forced into the package.
Then there’s the cost of moving up. A totally new computer system will be required to meet the operation requirements. Since my old computers are working just fine at the moment, I’ve no need to do that sort of purchase. Plus any old hardware I have now won’t work in the new computer.
I don’t really want to start over rebuying hardware. I’ve found in the past that most of what I really like in hardware I could move from computer to computer till it either wore out or became so aged that it was worthless for the benefits.
But that won’t be allowed in a protected environment such as Vista that must watch everything within its signal path. Mainly because those pieces of hardware don’t have the latest greatest protection systems on them.
So it all sums up to there being no driving need to have the new OS and plenty of cash reasons not to go that way.
Also See:
ZDNet – COutlook 2007 users angry over Office 2007 HTML-e-mail changes, January 12, 2007
Not as badly – Vista: better than expected, January 13, 2007
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January 15th, 2007 at 2:50 am
I don’t think calling Bill Gates morally challanged is exactly founded. He is at the point where he does not oversee as much of the day to day business as most people think. He has shown corporate social responsibility through his current work with charity. Perhaps the head of the project in question should be critisized instead.
January 15th, 2007 at 10:11 am
I think this is a reference to the current Gates Foundation scandal, discussed here: http://p2pnet.net/story/10944
January 15th, 2007 at 5:26 pm
Subject says it all.