The MacBU beta trifecta: Entourage Exchange Web Services, Messenger, and Document Collaboration Companion

re: The MacBU beta trifecta: Entourage Exchange Web Services, Messenger, and Document Collaboration Companion

Marck — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 22:56:54 GMT

Screen the beta of messenger? and when are avaible?

re: The MacBU beta trifecta: Entourage Exchange Web Services, Messenger, and Document Collaboration Companion

nadyne — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 23:47:57 GMT

Marck - We're not making major UI changes to the next version of Messenger. We don't have a date to share about when the beta will be available. As I said in my previous post, we'll post more information about that beta when we can.

re: The MacBU beta trifecta: Entourage Exchange Web Services, Messenger, and Document Collaboration Companion

Marck — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 00:21:58 GMT

Ah ok thanks!! hope coming soon!! thanks anyway

re: The MacBU beta trifecta: Entourage Exchange Web Services, Messenger, and Document Collaboration Companion

toonnyc — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 01:21:59 GMT

No improvements with 2003? Upgrading my two servers to 2007 will cost and that's a four letter word right now.

re: The MacBU beta trifecta: Entourage Exchange Web Services, Messenger, and Document Collaboration Companion

nadyne — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 08:34:08 GMT

toonnyc - Exchange Web Services was added to Exchange in 2007. You should continue to use Entourage 2008, since the upcoming Entourage EWS release will only have Exchange support for Ex2007 (unless you're connecting to your Exchange server via IMAP; our support for POP/IMAP is still unchanged). For more details about our Exchange support roadmap, you should talk to your Microsoft account rep.

re: The MacBU beta trifecta: Entourage Exchange Web Services, Messenger, and Document Collaboration Companion

mat — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 19:32:26 GMT

will the EWS be in Entourage 2010 (or whenever the new Office is released) or in an '08 ServicePack?

re: The MacBU beta trifecta: Entourage Exchange Web Services, Messenger, and Document Collaboration Companion

nadyne — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 04:43:37 GMT

mat - We're not planning to add EWS to Entourage 2008. Exchange users who are on Exchange 2003 should stay with Entourage 2008 (since Exchange Web Services was introduced in Ex2007) and should not update to Entourage EWS -- Entourage EWS only uses EWS to talk to Exchange, so it won't work at all with Ex2003. We will continue to use EWS in future releases of Entourage.

reflections on Macworld Expo 2009 (part two)

go ahead, mac my day — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 20:05:40 GMT

How different was working in the booth this year?

re: The MacBU beta trifecta: Entourage Exchange Web Services, Messenger, and Document Collaboration Companion

Ashroff Khan — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 21:39:25 GMT

This is definitely good news. Looking forward to testing the beta - we have many users waiting for this upgrade as they have been struggling with the problems created by WebDAV. No mention was made about the impact on the connection problems with public folders. Accessing public folder is painfully slow and when moving e-mails from your inbox to a public folder the date is changed. Will these 2 problems be fixed when moving to EWS?

Ash

Entourage EWS beta available now

go ahead, mac my day — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 19:42:14 GMT

Mac users on Exchange servers, rejoice! Entourage EWS is available today!

re: The MacBU beta trifecta: Entourage Exchange Web Services, Messenger, and Document Collaboration Companion

Scotty — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 19:53:17 GMT

When will Entourage have the option to work in online only mode like Outlook, where all data is kept on the server, instead of having to cache everything to the user's hard drive? I find it ridiculous that when accessing other people's shared calendars and contacts using Entourage, those people's data is also cached to my hard drive.

Will Entourage users be able to access and edit server-based rules?

re: The MacBU beta trifecta: Entourage Exchange Web Services, Messenger, and Document Collaboration Companion

nadyne — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 22:07:53 GMT

Scotty - Server-based rules aren't a part of the EWS beta that we released today, nor is an online-only mode.

re: The MacBU beta trifecta: Entourage Exchange Web Services, Messenger, and Document Collaboration Companion

Scotty — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 02:09:01 GMT

Will server-based rules and online only mode ever be implemented in Entourage?

re: The MacBU beta trifecta: Entourage Exchange Web Services, Messenger, and Document Collaboration Companion

nadyne — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 02:20:30 GMT

Scotty - I can't comment on features that aren't a part of the beta. You should ensure that your Microsoft account rep is aware of your company's needs for these features in Entourage.

re: The MacBU beta trifecta: Entourage Exchange Web Services, Messenger, and Document Collaboration Companion

Scotty — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 09:10:29 GMT

I refuse to believe that I am the only person who is tired of all the endless caching done by Entourage when connecting to an Exchange server. In January 2008, Australian Personal Computer Magazine published an article "Office 2008 for Mac fails to deliver full Exchange support" in which they interviewed the MacBU at Macworld:

http://apcmag.com/macbu_interview_office_2008_for_mac_fails_to_deliver_full_exchange_support.htm

It was both funny and disturbing to read the interviewer ask about specific features, only to have the MacBU repeatedly answer "No" to each question.

In order to provide a better understanding of the MacBU's role at Microsoft, perhaps you could answer the following questions openly and honestly:

In his October 2008 interview with PC Magazine, what did Steve Balmer mean when he said that Macs "don’t really get full Microsoft Office"?

Has the MacBU been given a directive, either express or implied, that Mac versions of Microsoft Office or Exchange email clients should have less than full functionality compared to the Windows versions? Or that the Mac versions should lack certain functionality that users expect to see in the Windows versions?

re: The MacBU beta trifecta: Entourage Exchange Web Services, Messenger, and Document Collaboration Companion

Martijn Schouten — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 12:11:27 GMT

Great news! Missing support for Exchange Categories, Tasks and Notes was -the- reason for me not to use Entourage. I will give it another shot. Thanks for the update!

re: The MacBU beta trifecta: Entourage Exchange Web Services, Messenger, and Document Collaboration Companion

R. Andrew Holleron — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 15:28:07 GMT

"DCC is a standalone app that better enables Mac users to work with documents stored in SharePoint and Office Live Workspaces."

If this is the case, it would turn Microsoft Live for Small Business into a tool I can actually use.

Keeping my fingers crossed . . .

re: The MacBU beta trifecta: Entourage Exchange Web Services, Messenger, and Document Collaboration Companion

nadyne — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 20:38:26 GMT

Oh, Scotty, I was wondering when you would start to trot out the conspiracy theories. It's especially amusing that you bring up an interview from a year ago that asks about several features that we have now delivered in the beta.

But, to answer your little questions:

1. Given that I'm not Steve Ballmer, I can't speak for him. Looking at that statement at face value, I see no reason to disagree with him, nor any reason to get upset. It's an accurate statement that Office for Windows includes applications that are not a part of Office:Mac.

2. I'm going to answer this question, but you're not going to believe me 'cause you're firmly convinced of your little conspiracy theory. But I'll waste the bits anyway. There is no directive, either express or implied.

We're the oldest, and largest, all-Mac development shop outside of Apple themselves. We've been developing through this platform since the very beginning. We've got several people on our team, including much of our senior leadership, who have done nothing but Mac development for their entire careers.

http://macworld.com/article/138295/2009/01/entourage_exchange_ews.html

TrackBack — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 21:06:39 GMT

http://macworld.co.uk/macsoftware/news/index.cfm?newsid=24529

TrackBack — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 21:06:57 GMT

http://pcworld.com/article/157978/microsoft_releases_entourageexchange_improvements.html

TrackBack — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 21:07:55 GMT

re: The MacBU beta trifecta: Entourage Exchange Web Services, Messenger, and Document Collaboration Companion

Scotty — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 03:32:01 GMT

If you are going to discount that apcmag article, then tell us when server-based rules will be accessible in Entourage. Tell us when Entourage will be able to work in online-only mode so it no longer fills Mac users hard drives with cached data. That question was asked in the article.

So you finally got Exchange notes and tasks available in Entourage. Does that mean an Entourage user now has to wait for these items to be cached to the Mac hard drive, in addition to other people's shared calendars that he accesses, other people's shared contacts that he accesses, other people's shared mail folders that he accesses, as well as all of his own mail folders?

Your response "talk to your account rep" is just being obtuse. Are you really going to claim that you have never seen complaints about how Entourage's excessive caching ties up the network and eats up disk space on the Mac's hard drive? Or that when people use Entourage, they can't access rules on the server like they can in Outlook? Or that people want native support for reading and writing PST files in Entourage, rather than having to wait for the incredibly slow PST Import Tool?

re: The MacBU beta trifecta: Entourage Exchange Web Services, Messenger, and Document Collaboration Companion

Scotty — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 03:55:40 GMT

I have read other Mac BU developers get defensive about Entourage. They say things like "we're working on Entourage", "cut us some slack"... But they just don't get it. Nobody asked for Entourage in the first place. What Mac users really wanted was for Outlook to be updated for OS X, and now for Intel Macs. We want a native Mac OS X application that is built from the ground up for total Exchange client functionality. But instead, we have spent the past 8 years waiting for Exchange client features to be slowly reverse engineered into Entourage. And to this day, there are features in Outlook 2001 for Mac that are still not available in Entourage. If you had spent all those years updating Outlook for Mac instead of wandering the desert with Entourage, we would have a much more functional Mac Exchange client today. Yet you get defensive about Entourage when Mac users complain. Sorry, but you lost that right a long time ago.

re: The MacBU beta trifecta: Entourage Exchange Web Services, Messenger, and Document Collaboration Companion

nadyne — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 04:03:59 GMT

Under NDA, your account rep can share more details about our future plans than I can share in the comments to a blog post. You can choose to view that as obtuse if you wish, but the reality of the situation is quite different.

Adding features is something that doesn't happen overnight. We prioritise adding features based on customer feedback, as well as the cost of implementing such features. Improved syncing of various items with Exchange bubbled higher to our priority list than other requests, such as your top complaints of server-side rules and offline mode. At this time, all I can tell you is that they're not a part of the beta; I can't comment on whether they'll be available in a future version.

You can complain here if you wish, but if your goal is to ensure that your feedback about the Exchange features your company needs the most is in the hands of the decision-makers, comments on my blog aren't very effective. There's a huge difference between me saying in a meeting "so there's this guy on my blog who's always going off about offline mode" and an account rep coming to us and saying "there's a customer with x Mac users and $y in service contracts who has these needs".

re: The MacBU beta trifecta: Entourage Exchange Web Services, Messenger, and Document Collaboration Companion

nadyne — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 04:16:17 GMT

Who's being defensive? You're asking whether there's some kind of conspiracy. If you want to have a real conversation about our future support for Exchange features, there's a couple of roads to take:

1. Ask reasonable questions. Your question about offline support and server-side rules are reasonable questions. Your question about some kind of conspiracy is not reasonable.

2. Ask your questions about the future in a venue where they can be answered, and by someone who can answer them. I can't answer your questions, but I pointed you towards someone who can answer your questions -- that's your Microsoft account rep. There are details that can be shared under NDA which I can't talk about here.

Now, if you just want to complain and crack insults, that's great, but if you do that, then you lose the right to complain about tone in responses to you.

re: The MacBU beta trifecta: Entourage Exchange Web Services, Messenger, and Document Collaboration Companion

John — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 06:51:18 GMT

Nadyne... this is really terrific news, but 2009 is a year, not a "date", thus very vague to announce a release with that much excitement.

Please give us a clue about -at least- in which quarter Messenger beta is estimated to see the day of light. I can´t believe you (or the one in charge of it) doesn´t have the slightest idea if it´s gonna happen in march or december...

Cheers.

re: The MacBU beta trifecta: Entourage Exchange Web Services, Messenger, and Document Collaboration Companion

nadyne — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 20:58:52 GMT

You're right, it's very vague. Our beta has a huge number of external dependencies, most importantly the ongoing Windows Live Messenger beta. If something happens with one of those dependencies, our dates are impacted; if something happens with more than one of those, then the effect on us is multiplied. As a result, I don't have anything more to share yet.

re: The MacBU beta trifecta: Entourage Exchange Web Services, Messenger, and Document Collaboration Companion

John — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 22:34:05 GMT

Thanks for such a quick answer, Nadyne.

I understand it´s very complicated, but I guess there´s a "#1 Messenger guy" to whom every dependency reports to and has to know if it the estimated (or at least desired) time is very soon/soon/not soon... right?

I´m not (very) dumb and I know the chances that "soon" or "very soon" are minimal, as if they were like that you´d already told us... but I take the chance nevertheless...

Cheers!

re: The MacBU beta trifecta: Entourage Exchange Web Services, Messenger, and Document Collaboration Companion

nadyne — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 22:41:39 GMT

The problem is the potential delta between desired time to make the beta available and the real time that we can make the beta available. If it were just internal dependencies, we'd be able to talk about that better, 'cause those are things that we can control. But with so many external dependencies, all of which are outside our control, we can't give more details yet.

The very second that I can give more details, I will -- the Messenger:Mac team wants to get our beta out the door just as much as you want to try it out.

Mac Mojo: "Entourage EWS beta feedback so far"

go ahead, mac my day — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 03:11:39 GMT

I just published a new post at Mac Mojo