Email loses 5 years

at 03:35 on 12 January 2007, Andrew wrote:

This is so frustrating.

at 04:37 on 12 January 2007, Ben wrote:

Get a mac.

at 06:08 on 12 January 2007, Andrew wrote:

Ben...you didn't read the article did you? This effects all email designers, regardless of the operating system they're using.

The issue is 70-80% of corporate recipients are using outlook. Which means a massive chunk of your recipients aren't receiving the email you designed.

Read the damn article before making half witted criticisms.

at 10:46 on 12 January 2007, Derek A wrote:

According to the MSDN doc (http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa338201.aspx), there is no support for the alt attribute in images.

Is this because Word cannot add the alt attribute at design time?

This could be a huge accessibility problem - especially as so many email apps disable images by default.

at 13:08 on 12 January 2007, Mike wrote:

Why do you do this to us Microsoft...........

at 15:39 on 12 January 2007, Simon W. Hall wrote:

Email is plaintext! (Try some RFC's)

Want people to see something, send them a link to a webpage.

at 19:13 on 12 January 2007, Hugh G. wrote:

Good grief. Can't this company get anything right?

at 20:30 on 12 January 2007, simon wrote:

I agree with Simon W Hall. Email is text. If you want to give a wonderful message then hire a PR team or make a great website. My email client blocks all the eye candy anyway, just like most other peoples...so why bother?

at 21:39 on 12 January 2007, Ben wrote:

Andrew, thanks for your concern.

No, I did not read the article and nor do I care to. As Simon has already pointed out: email is for plain text.

If you can't make an e-mail interesting enough in plain text than you might as well not send one.

My comment was also to show my complete and utter frustration with Microsoft's ignorance and arrogance in the technology world and this is just another (although not that important to me; obviously important to some people) item to add to the long list of where MS goes wrong.

There's a reason why Apple has "fanboys". It's because the company actually cares about making great, quality products for its users.

at 22:41 on 12 January 2007, Dan wrote:

I take it everyone who is saying that emails should only be text doesn’t work in eCommerce. HTML based email allows companies to show their product and not just tell about it. In many companies HTML emails can generate millions of dollars in revenue, from existing customers and people who signed up for a mailing list.

HTML emails allow the recipient to quickly glance at the material and see if it is something that wish to read further.

Why should email only be text? Hyper Text Mark Up was supposed to only be for text, but it has evolved to include graphics, forms, and other rich media. I don’t hear anyone here complaining about that.

If you don't want HTML emails then turn off that option in your email client.

-Ben commenting on an article that you haven't even read just makes you look ignorant. While I can agree that Microsoft is incredibly frustrating, they do controll and will continue to controll the market.

at 01:37 on 13 January 2007, unstructure wrote:

You think microsoft would be smart enough not to actually put a date in their software name. Outlook 2000 to Outlook 2007? That is a long development cycle for such widely used software.

at 05:34 on 13 January 2007, David B. wrote:

Dan said it all for me. you mean to tell me that you all dont get emails from , say, target with images , there are plenty big companies that this will effect in terms or online marketing, i would not be surprised if some big boys start to push back.

at 18:40 on 13 January 2007, Chris wrote:

Word has an HTML rendering engine? And I thought IE's engine was bad.

at 00:56 on 14 January 2007, Freddy Samuel wrote:

I think this is a great chance for Thunderbird to take over the email monopoly, same way firefox is taking over IE.

how can microsoft be so stupid?

at 11:11 on 15 January 2007, Soyuz wrote:

another "smart" move. way to go, microsoft!

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