Email Standards Project

Shouldn’t the title of this be “Microsoft responds”? Microsoft is a singular entity, as are all groups.

I still can’t believe that Microsoft can think they have any good explanation for moving back 10 years the support of email standards. Web designers and developers should all over the world should do even more than tweeting about it. How about a serious boycott? Or how about dropping support for these outdated non-standard software Microsoft makes and telling the world about it. We can all include in our designs a banner that mentions that our designs work in every web standards supported softwares. Hopefully they will rethink and come up with a better solution than complaining about ESP.

For the same reason Dan G explained, it should also be fixed in your 6th paragraph (not counting the quotes), which starts “If Microsoft are looking for a place to start...”

I’m not trying to be picky, but I really struggled when I got to that sentence because it interrupted the flow and it actually had me questioning myself.

Regarding Microsoft’s response, I was wondering why they were convinced that whatever Outlook uses for creating an email must be the same as what it uses for rendering one.  As soon as I got to the second line in their blog (”...about our decision to continue to use Microsoft Word for composing and displaying e-mail in the upcoming release of Microsoft Outlook 2010"), I blurted out “why do they need to use it for both?”

I’m glad that’s what you’re advocating, but maybe you should have gone one step further.  If you had argued for html standards for both creating and rendering emails, maybe they would have given in on the rendering part as the “middle ground.” They’re not going to change the rendering part if that’s all you’re looking for because that would look like they completely caved on your request.  Now they have no choice but to completely ignore you.

I think thats a typically Microsoft response - judging by this tosh from Adobe it seems to be the week for it (http://blogs.adobe.com/jd/2009/06/adobe_on_html5.html).

That they’ve tried to muddy the waters with the suggestion that Freshview have a vested interest is immature to say the least - are we to understand that as a major OS vendor, we should ignore what Microsoft have to say on I.T. as they are too biased to be believed?  Those in glass-houses…

One would have thought that with such a massive response - which I suspect took all of you by as much surprise as it did me - that they would be rapidly eating humble pie and promising to reconsider in light of such huge public opinion?

All I can say is that should that attitude continue, all that is likely to happen is that Microsoft will only continue to lose users to Apple, Linux et al - as those of us who haven’t seen the light already, make the move to systems that are more user-friendly.

“There is no widely-recognized consensus in the industry about what subset of HTML is appropriate for use in e-mail for interoperability”

Well, this is probably true. So, given that there is no consensus, they decided to support less than anyone else. Make sense. To id**ts.

The *fact* is that what Word supports IS NOT a subset of HTML: just try to make a table with cellspacing and cellpadding (Plain, simple, HTML 3, no HTML4/5, no CSS) and see that Word renders it differently from any standard HTML renderer, simply because it “emulate” html using a different engine having different logics.

It is not a subset, it is a different render.

I took their documentation about what is supported and what is not supported from outlook 2007. I then took an HTML email and removed anything that was not supported and rendered it in a standard web client. Then I took both, the original and the stripped html and rendered them through Outlook and they looked different each other (because “unsupported” for Microsoft means: we have no idea of what it will render) and also different from the standard rendering of supported attributes (because “supported” for Microsoft means: we tried to make it standard but we have no idea of what it will render).

Freshview is unfairly catagorized as a “spam” software maker. Anyone who categorizes them as such is spreading fear and doubt and falling for a fairly obvious schmeer tactic. Don’t lump a legitimate business tool with the shady underbelly of bot-net delivered, unsolicited and illegal spam. Confusing the two is playing right into Microsoft’s lies.

All web standards are equal but some are more equal than others

:(

But isn’t it more a case of the relevance of the complaints? I would imagine that a large proportion of the people complaining produce the majority of emails. This would always be a smaller number compared to the number of users of Outlook but as a community, it has a much stronger message, even if it is united under the ‘non sanctioned’ banner of the ESP!

WHO SAID WEB STANDARDS ARE DUMB?

NOOB! LEAVE THIS DISCUSSION, THANKS.

Microsoft is awesome at not adhering to web standards solely because everyone else does. They’re quite the rebellious bunch.

Nice work, this will be an interesting development to follow.

@Dave Greiner, you might have been irked by Microsoft bringing up that you are an email campaign company. But look at it this way...you got a nice inbound link to your web site from the MSN blog, and it’s even coded well for search ranking purposes!

I agree completely with what you’re doing, but I too am constrained by my loathing for twitter. C’mon guys. There’s got to be a better way to stick it to the man than to be twits.

Microsoft wants to BE the standard. The best way to send them a message is simple:  find another email software.  I would hate to have to leave Outlook, but I am tired of MS indifference.

That’s right, Microsoft is power-hungry and doesn’t feel guilty at all to abuse that power.

But what else could expect now that it is being lead by that Ballmer guy? His personality is so… distasteful as well. I think that is really reflecting upon the company. But I know that it may just be my personal feeling towards that guy.

Maybe they will stop to find lazy excuse one time ...

@staender - I work with dozens of companies with OPT-IN lists that want to send non-spam HTML & CSS based emails. Campaign Monitor is one of the strongest ANTI-SPAM proponents on the Internet.

@emailer - you may have a decade of experience, but that doesn’t prove that you know anything. Whatever you know is probably a decade old, too. Get used to the idea of web standards. They’re not going anywhere. And they will be used for email because an HTML email IS STILL HTML and everyone but you and M$ seems to get the picture. HTML 2 should be buried right along with tables used for presentation. And I also say this with a decade of experience in the field. :)

Sorry, but HTML has no place in mail. Attachment != body.
Instead of spending time choosing fonts, why not proofread ?

“and OUTLOOK renders true email (i.e. TEXT) perfectly.”

So tell Microsoft not to try to render HTML and simply use the text part in multipart text/html emails. The text part is there for clients that do not want or are unable to render html. Outlook 2007 is clearly unable to correctly render HTML (3.2 or 4, or anything else) so either they fix this or they can simply use text. The multipart/alternative mime type has been invented for this. It is SOO easy!

About that Twitter account, could you create one to follow when the whole fixoutlook is over? I’d like to know what’s going on with the other clients etc :)

Yes Microsoft, please make it easier for spammers to send what would amount to web pages to mass distribution lists. All of you people in here supporting this are suckers.

Sorry to be a grammar Nazi, but another grammatical error has been added to FixOutlook.com. The update starts “Microsoft have responded”, but it should read “Microsoft has responded”. These grammar errors really bring down the credibility of your request.

fixoutlook.org says “Microsoft have responded...”. As an earlier post said, they are a single corporate entity, so shouldn’t it be “Microsoft has ...”?

In regards to “Microsoft has” vs. “Microsoft have”, I think it was right from the beginning. Other words such as “information” or “police” are considered plural in the English language. I think the same applies to a company or organization. After all, Microsoft are a group of people. I think everyone understands what is meant and I won’t ask anyone to change it back.

In regards to the standards, as far as I know, HTML is an ISO standard. So what about that is not sanctioned and not an industry consensus?

I propose all to switch to thunderbird.

Regards

http://www.mozillamessaging.com/en-US/thunderbird/

microsoft didn’t publish my comment to their blog…

I think you should remove links to campaign monitor and newism.

How can you gain credibility by advertising your services on what should be an impartial site? This makes your campaign look like it is controlled by an hidden agenda.

But other than that keep up the good work.

For those who may wonder ...

English/European English: “Microsoft respond ...”, “Microsoft are ...”

American English: “Microsoft responds ...”, “Microsoft is ...”

RE the ESP being backed by Campaign Monitor, as long as they don’t use this as an advertisement, what’s the problem? At least they are being transparent about who they are. Any one who has tried to develop HTML emails would understand and appreciate why they create the ESP.

They hard part over the past few years is explaining to clients why we need to redesign their templates (at their cost). None of them could get their heads around what Microsoft are doing.

If Microsoft won’t take this seriously because its backed by you guys, why not attack it from another angle…

You say you’ve worked with the likes of AOL etc in the past, can you get them on your side to approach Microsoft - surely they also have problems rending emails created in Outlook 2007 within their own programs?

I know a lot of my own business customers complain because they lovingly craft email messages in outlook 2007 only to find the reply from the client with the original email mutated below!

It’s like sending a video tape in the mail when a letter does.

Thank you for sharing..

@Wayde Christie

thanks

@S Schmidt

Why do you even use the internet? It may not be as secure as normal mail and going to real places to get information on real paper. It actually doesn’t matter, the point is you can choose whether you communicate and get information by “normal” means or by using the internet platform. The same thing applies to HTML vs plain text emails. You choose. And that’s your choice, don’t try to demand that everyone stops using HTML emails. Obviously they have advantages (and disadvantages, such as the very problem with rendering/composing standards), otherwise they wouldn’t be used so much today. Just as plain text emails have advantages as well as certain disadvantages (which have been explained several times in these comments for people like you who seem to just lack the understanding that web/email designers have, no offense). Also if you don’t care about what engine Outlook uses, which basically means you don’t care about the standards, where do you get the audacity from to even post a comment here? You have somehow gotten into the wrong corner of the internet here. Keep promoting plain text emails if that’s what you’d like to do, but everything here is about standards and only standards (and unfortunately also things that don’t follow standards). It is NOT, however, a place to discuss HTML vs plain text emails here, no, so please go away. You honestly don’t know enough to be qualified to make statements about why HTML emails are less secure (they can be just as secure as plain text). And the URL argument just proves that. (Basically you’re saying that HTML websites should be avoided because guess what, links can also say something else than what the anchor actually leads to; which is a reason why status bars were invented).

Several points to make:

1. Microsoft products should support HTML if they claim that they do.  If Outlook claims HTML-compliance, then you (the end-user) should have every right to return it for a refund when you discover otherwise.

Microsoft is and has been arrogant in pushing a “things should be done my way” attitude. If Microsoft remains indignant, then the customer base should react by rejecting MS products.  Our capitalist economy depends on this practice.

2. Though I prefer plain-text email, I do accept that HTML email has its place.  Things like newsletters, product announcements, promotional material, etc., all look better in a properly-formatted HTML message.  However, I believe that the majority of email messages should be plain-text.  Email clients should not generate HTML formatting by default.  I don’t need or want to see cool fonts and a rainbow of colors in a message that says “please send me a copy of the latest draft you worked on.” Plain-text would do perfectly and would cause no undue eye strain on my end.  Unnecessary HTML formatting is a waste of resources in those instances and can actually interfere with functionality.

3. I refuse to use Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, etc.  I also dislike sending text messages from my cell phone.  I don’t have the time for any of it.  I don’t understand how other people DO have the time.

4. I am a stick in the mud when it comes to new technologies, so take my comments for what they are worth.  I still use tables in my HTML and only use CSS for minimal text styling and layout.  I am a firm believer that backwards compatibility is more important than the lastest whiz-bang feature, unless the entire reason for a web site or email IS the feature itself.

@temhawk

John Gilbert uses tables for layout cause they WORK for him and probably display properly on the majority of email clients he’s delivering to… including Outlook.

So why is HE lazy when he’s actually getting things done?

I’d say the lazy folks are the ones are the designers who say that ‘sites are generally laid out and styled nowdays’ using CSS but don’t acutually realise that, wait for it…

HTML emails are NOT web sites.

If it works for him, just respect it and let him be. No need to attack a man for finding a workaround just because it doesn’t live up to your requirements.  A little disrespectful and a little more immature IMHO.

Thanks for reading :)

@ temhawk

I use tables for layout.  There, I said it.  I have my reasons.

The main reason I can see for NOT using tables is that nothing can be rendered until the entire table is loaded.  I never use overly-complicated tables that cause undue delays in rendering a page.  As a matter of fact, most web pages and emails I create can load in a matter of seconds even on dial-up.  I never design 3 columns of extra garbage, and I never require left/right scrolling, even on a 14” monitor.

For technology companies, it may make sense to limit the audience to those with brand new computers and broadband internet.  There would be no sense in marketing tech products to people who are content using older technology.  Most of MY clients, however, would rather have people spend money on their own non-tech products and services.  Thus, while DELL may be able to safely and smartly rule out (as a potential customer) the user of 486 PC on dial-up, my clients would be more than happy to market toward him/her.  Thus my reluctance on using current technologies that limit my audience.

All my CSS is backwards compatible with straight HTML rendering.  I’m not going to say that I still use the FONT tag.  That would be silly.  I might do that if I were marketing something toward users of old compact Macs with small black & white screens [yes there are some of those on the ‘net], but not toward the mainstream.

And remember, the mainstream uses Microsoft Office because it either came with their computer or because it is already on their work computer.  Also, the mainstream doesn’t upgrade their software unless they are forced to do so.  Web designers and software developers are NOT the majority here.

For as long as I can remember, Outlook has always had questionable rendering ability for HTML and/or CSS.  There are numerous workarounds used to ensure “proper” rendering in Outlook.  I would love for Microsoft to finally support and respect the standards, but there would undoubtedly still be a huge user-base still using older, less capable versions of Outlook.  We [those who send HTML email] would still need to support those older versions with the same tricks we’ve always used.  We would not really be in any better a place.  If Microsoft had been supporting the standards all along, then that would be a different story.

Oh, I forgot to make point number 5 in my first post, so here it is.  I am a Mac user.

To the people who are saying that e-mail designers will still need to support the older incompatible versions of Outlook - I think you are missing the point of why this discussion is coming up now, at this minute, where Microsoft is still in a position where their product is not released…

If they do release Outlook 2010 in this state, then that will be increasing the backwards compatibility timeline so much further than just this year! Even as those using outdated software update (as the vast majority inevitably have to) they are still getting incompatible rendering. Outlook 2007 is now a few years old and many have not upgraded from 2003 yet, if they upgrade to 2010 on release then they have waited at least 7-8 years. Do you still want to be supporting incompatible e-mail clients in another 7-8 years?

How many more releases have to be made before standards are supported?

The best thing that could come from this is Microsoft acknowledging how much they are hindering progress, depriving their customers and causing untold misery and additional expense for those creating and paying for e-mail template design.

Sure, they can keep the Word editor or whatever it is they want to use, all we are asking for is standards compliant e-mail *viewing*. What was wrong with using the IE rendering engine in earlier versions of Outlook? It’s an OS-level component that can be upgraded independently of Outlook and already has much better and still improving standards compliance. If they want to pull the security card again, surely that must make you and their customers question just how secure it is to use any Microsoft app that relies on Internet Explorer?

@John Gilbert

No offense but you are seriously behind and none of your arguments justify that. Using tables is bad not because of loading/performance issues. The fact that CSS is faster than table layouts in the majority of cases is, you could say, “a side-effect”.

The first thing you should ask yourself is what “table” actually means. It can mean many things, but the most obvious meanings that come to mind are tables that you sit down at for dinner or for discussing projects with your boss, colleagues or clients. And then, not long after that you should make the connection from the word “table” to “tabular data” and remember what these “tables” in Microsoft Excel and thousands of other applications do. (Although data has been viewed in tabular format long before computers existed.)
Now, is your website a (virtual) object where you put your plates and spoons and soup on? *Probably* not. Is your website one big analysis from an experiment or one big comparison chart? Can the relation between one specific part in the main body and your site logo be logically compared to the relation between another part and the logo? Unlikely, and I hope you understood this example, because I basically just described the characteristics of a data table; an object that contains tabular (look these words up in the dictionary if you are uncertain!) data.

You wouldn’t be using list tags to create a plain old paragraph now would you? I bet not even in the dark(er) ages of web design has anyone ever done that. So why use a table to do something that is completely unrelated to tabular data (namely a presentational composition for displaying all sorts of content), just as a paragraph is simply not a list.

Next you should think about people who have disabilities. Using tables for layout is not accessible because a screen reader for example will treat the entire website as if it were all tabular data.

And I also can’t see any other reason for not using technologies that require less code, offer much more maintainability, optimize your site’s performance and provide all those other great advantages (for both the designer and the user)… than being too lazy to learn proper CSS (beyond just changing font sizes and background colors).

A simple google search can reveal a never-ending supply of information on this topic: http://lmgtfy.com/?q=tables+for+layout
I urge you to look into as many of these search results as you can in the next few weeks (you probably wont be enlightened in just one day).

(My wall of text is too long so I’m forced to split it up into two posts…)

So many things to say here… I’ll keep if brief, although somewhat random.

1. I DO think that Microsoft should support the standards.  I think that if they continue failing to meet expectations, then their market should react in such a way as to make an impact (ie. Don’t buy their products).  If they correct their mistakes, they will survive.  If they don’t, they will fail and go out of business, providing an opportunity for another software company to fill the void and possibly create a product that meets expectations. This is how capitalism works.  Complaining on Twitter is unlikely to make the impact you expect.  Just keep in mind that Microsoft is not in the business to make people happy.  It is in the business to make money.  As someone pointed out in an earlier post, it probably makes more financial sense for Microsoft do continue as planned.  Obviously that would make nobody happy except for Microsoft.

2. If you think that Microsoft fixing Outlook 2010 will be a miraculous cure for all our ailments, you’re wrong.  This will only be the case for large agencies that have clients that will ignore a large portion of the potential market.  I am not knocking these agencies or the designers for doing this—It is simply a matter of spending money wisely to get the best return on investment.  That is smart business.

3. I am not part of a large agency.  My clients do not want to disregard potential customers based on their web browser or email client.  For them, that would NOT be smart.  For clients such as these, it would be wise to continue supporting outdated email clients.

-- comments blow are less related to our main topic --

4. I may be in the “technology sector”, but my clients are not technology companies.  I don’t need to convince them to use new technology.

5. Sorry for not explaining myself more clearly.  Apparently from the responses I received, my lack of verbosity must have made me appear ignorant.  What I meant when I said using tables for layout is an “unintended use” was that the creators of the HTML specifications never intended for tables to be used for layout; tables (the HTML variety) were intended to contain tabular data.  Obviously from its widespread use, designers once considered tables-for-layout as an accepted practice.

When tables were introduced into the HTML spec, this was one of the best ways to control layout of web pages.  It was a godsend to many web designers because it allowed their designs to be fully realized.  When CSS was introduced and browsers started supporting it for layout, that too was a major advancement.  I do not argue that.  I will not claim that tables for layout is better than CSS for layout.  It is not.  It is, however, more suitable for my current uses.

Just because something better came along doesn’t mean the prior method suddenly doesn’t work anymore.

6. When I said I am a Mac user, I wasn’t looking to make other Mac users happy— I was giving PC users an excuse to disregard my comments.  When I said I still use tables for layout, I wasn’t knocking CSS—I was giving the web design snobs a reason do disregard my comments.  My comments were made to avoid unnecessary argument that is already prevalent elsewhere on the web.

John, thanks for explaining yourself more thoroughly and clearly. I don’t feel like commenting on most of the points you just made because either they’re not too topical, as you said, or they’re a matter of personal views. For example, just because your clients aren’t tech-savvy, doesn’t mean you can’t create modern code for them. If it is incompatible with prehistoric devices and software they may have, tell them to upgrade. I mean, that’s what I would do, because there is really no effort in doing that (neither for me nor for the client). They don’t have to know WHY, the technical reasons, they just have to do it. But I guess that’s not so relevant since it’s okay if you don’t stick to the standards closely if you really have that kind of clients only. However, you shouldn’t, in any way, promote these old methods to other designers, which is what you’re doing by implying that using tables for layout is acceptable. If I knew you better and saw that you actually have “modern clients” I would call you a bad designer, but I trust you. And that’s why I say it’s okay for you (and only you, for all I know) to use these old methods, because I guess the need for business is too strong when you mostly write markup for “old-school clients”. Personally, I would choose to write 100% valid markup and let potential clients know that it’s probably not gonna be compatible with a dinosauric software configuration. But hey, maybe you like accommodating clients with old-timer software and spoiling them by mentioning no word to them about the strengths of new technologies and the reasons for upgrading. Then you don’t have much of a choice, I understand that. But as I said, if you want to design for a different, broader audience, you have to let go of layout tables and inline CSS and whatever else is toxic to a modern page, otherwise you would be falsely claiming to be a professional.

And then there is what I see to be a contradiction in your arguments. I’ll quote it:

“1. I DO think that Microsoft should support the standards.  I think that if they continue failing to meet expectations, then their market should react in such a way as to make an impact (ie. Don’t buy their products).  If they correct their mistakes, they will survive.  If they don’t, they will fail and go out of business, providing an opportunity for another software company to fill the void and possibly create a product that meets expectations. This is how capitalism works.  Complaining on Twitter is unlikely to make the impact you expect.  Just keep in mind that Microsoft is not in the business to make people happy.  It is in the business to make money.  As someone pointed out in an earlier post, it probably makes more financial sense for Microsoft do continue as planned.  Obviously that would make nobody happy except for Microsoft.”

The thing that doesn’t make sense is that, in your opinion, which I share, if people stop buying Microsoft’s products (i.e. Outlook 210 or whatever else that might not “meet expectations"), “they will fail and go out of business”, but you also say that “Complaining on Twitter is unlikely to make the impact” I expect. Let me clarify how I understand this: You agree that the collective power of thousands of people can force Microsoft to make Outlook 2010 better (in terms of standards-compliance and interoperability), but you put down the effort we’ve taken on Twitter and don’t even suggest a different approach to communicating with Microsoft and their oblivious customer base. Nobody is ever going to stop using Outlook 2010 if the people who are in the field (designers, developers) don’t raise their voice and explain it to them. And in my opinion 20,000+ people twittering about it (we must consider the fact that Twitter is known all over the world and has an Alexa rank of 33, which is goddamn high) is a very effective way of communicating our demands. I actually can’t think of anything better other than TV spots or large street protests, both of which aren’t very feasible.

Also:

“2. If you think that Microsoft fixing Outlook 2010 will be a miraculous cure for all our ailments, you’re wrong.  This will only be the case for large agencies that have clients that will ignore a large portion of the potential market.  I am not knocking these agencies or the designers for doing this—It is simply a matter of spending money wisely to get the best return on investment.  That is smart business.”

We know that, we’re not morons. But this is a step in the right direction. One that has to be made. Nothing will change by doing nothing. Not supporting this means not supporting the future. It would mean you are against innovation in the furthest sense.

This is really a great conversation. I’d love to hear more about conferences with the big search engines. I wonder what they think of their image at the moment. Microsoft that is, and what they are going to do differently from Google.

Adrian said “Last point I wanna make is look at 2Advanced Studios (http://www.2advanced.com) “

Not much good as an example though.  No Flash and No Javascript = no website!

Nothing to learn (t)here - move along.

thanks admin very good

But isn’t it more a case of the relevance of the complaints? I would imagine that a large proportion of the people complaining produce the majority of emails. This would always be a smaller number compared to the number of users of Outlook but as a community, it has a much stronger message, even if it is united under the ‘non sanctioned’ banner of the TR!

is because they work and are more reliable than using DIV positioning.

So what they weren’t designed for this purpose?  If it works, use it!

have outlook 2010 support standards. I don’t care of what design firm is cooler and what remember eighties… Outlook doesn’t even correctly render simple HTML 3.02 so this is not a discussion about table or CSS, this is about being standard

It seems that Microsoft just doesn’t get it or care to get it. I have a pretty good history building and debugging emails for various fortune 500 clients and throughout all of my testing I have to say that Outlook 2007 just simply broke perfectly valid HTML/CSS emails. Not only that, the only thing worse than making your email look right on Outlook 2007 was making it look right on Lotus Notes!

Perhaps some bright mind should start a movement for email standards sans Outlook? Surely there must be one web based or other email client that can usurp the dominant choke hold that Microsoft’s Outlook seem to have in the market. Actually I can name a few.

This is just as the browser wars.

As they don’t care, I won’t care either for any client that opens up my email using such crap - Outlook that is. It’s the same as with IE6 - they will never care about how it looks, as long as they can see the text and click the links. I’m fine with that too, I’ll be designing only with the rest of the people in mind.

Honestly, I stopped giving a damn about MS long time ago. It’s their product, you can’t force them to build it in a particular way if they don’t wanna.

And it feels soooo good to see their buts kicked in some parts of the world: like here in Europe, where they won’t be selling Win7 with IE included - thank God! (go Mozilla :D)

Perhaps some bright mind should start a movement for email standards sans Outlook? Surely there must be one web based or other email client that can usurp the dominant choke hold that Microsoft’s Outlook seem to have in the market. Actually I can name a few.

@serge fourier: oh, my intelligent guide, if you don’t need HTML I’m sure you know how to configure your client to show text only. I bet you also browse internet blocking images, LOL. If you don’t care about standards please don’t waste our time and stay away from this place.

One of the key reasons why Microsoft dropped the use of browser rendering engine and switched to Word, could be the fact that EU forced Microsoft to deliver Windows without browser, so Office 2010 can not be built to use MS HTML/XML rendering libraries any more.

@John Gilbert
Good idea.  Maybe it could just be available as a free download…

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Sounds simple to me: The message is that Outlook *can* read the emails *it* creates. You see, everyone uses Outlook — or, if they don’t, they should. And Microsoft will teach them this through punishment, by making their email less readable to Microsoft’s many users.

Note how commenters were described as part of a “community” with a “unique” perspective. For Outlook to do what Hotmail can do — that seems like common sense to me.

Thanks for bringing this to my attention. Yet another reason to ask IT departments to move away from the perpetual Microsoft headache.

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One of the reasons why I gave up on Outlook (including Office) and actually Windows, is the poor standards support.

I am not an open source fanatic but they do have some nice stuff in their shelfs I like.

However, after two years of being a happy Apple MacBook (and MacMini for the matters) user, I am not planning to go back to Windows 7 & Office 2010 when reading there are no improvements in the standards sector.