<HTML><BODY style="word-wrap: break-word; -khtml-nbsp-mode: space; -khtml-line-break: after-white-space; "><BR class="Apple-interchange-newline"><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV style=""><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#006312">Hello everyone:</FONT></DIV><DIV style=""><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#006312"><BR style=""></FONT></DIV><DIV style=""><SPAN class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre; "> </SPAN><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#006312">Occasionally I hear complaints about lack of feature parity of Entourage with Outlook. Yesterday there was an interesting thread on the MacEnterprise mailing list in that regard. The following is a response from the Lead Program Manager for Entourage in Microsoft's Macintosh Business Unit. Andy points out Microsoft's commitment to making Entourage a great product, and offers advice on how customers can best provide feedback to Microsoft for enhancements.</FONT></DIV><DIV style=""><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#006312"><BR style=""></FONT></DIV><DIV style=""><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#006312">While there isn't much that Apple can do directly to rectify Entourage issues, I hope Andy's advice will be beneficial. Also, if you're not already subscribed to the MacEnterprise list, I highly recommend it (<A href="http://www.macenterprise.org">http://www.macenterprise.org</A>).</FONT></DIV><DIV style=""><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#006312"><BR style=""></FONT></DIV><DIV style=""><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#006312">Mateja.</FONT></DIV><BR><DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Verdana" size="2"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 10px;">--</SPAN></FONT><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Verdana" size="2"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 10px;"> </SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Monaco" size="2"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 10px;">Mateja Miljacki, ACSA</SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Monaco" size="2"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 10px;"><A href="mailto:mateja@apple.com">mateja@apple.com</A></SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Monaco" size="2"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 10px;">Systems Engineer</SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#0000FE" face="Monaco" size="2"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 10px; text-decoration: underline;"><A href="http://www.apple.com/education/technicalresources/">http://www.apple.com/education/technicalresources/</A></SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Verdana" size="2"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 10px;">--</SPAN></FONT><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Verdana" size="2"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 10px;"> </SPAN></FONT></DIV></DIV><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">From: Andy Ruff <<A href="mailto:andyruff@GMAIL.COM">andyruff@GMAIL.COM</A>></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Date: September 28, 2006 12:52:27 PM CDT</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">To: <A href="mailto:MACENTERPRISE@LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU">MACENTERPRISE@LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU</A></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Subject: Re: Entourage Opinions</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Reply-To: Mac OS X enterprise deployment project <<A href="mailto:MACENTERPRISE@LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU">MACENTERPRISE@LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU</A>></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR style=""></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Hey folks,</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR style=""></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">I'm the Lead Program Manager for Entourage in Microsoft's Macintosh Business</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Unit (MacBU). I've been a member of this list for some time and presented</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">the June MacEnterprise Webcast on Exchange and Entourage. There are quite a</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">few members from across the product teams in the MacBU on this list--we are</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">listening in, despite the lack of responses.</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR style=""></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">I am not going to make excuses. I know that previous versions of Entourage</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">have been unreliable and difficult. Heck, prior to Entourage 2004 SP2,</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">downloading the public folder hierarchy inside Microsoft took a whopping</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">nine hours (compared to the many orgs I've seen, we don't have that many</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">public folders)! Don't think that I sat in my office within Microsoft back</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">in 2004 satisfied that my PowerBook was unable to share my calendar with</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">other members of the team.</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR style=""></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">We fixed these problems and we'll continue to fix issues with our current</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">design while also aiming to provide additional Exchange functionality.</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Exchange support in Entourage is an iterative process of improvement. We</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">are not aiming to be Outlook, but we are aiming to solve your problems. In</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">the three years I've been with the team, we've shipped four major versions</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">(as determined by the engineering work involved, not the app's version</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">number). Each of these has added Exchange functionality. Each of these has</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">brought about greater reliability. We're not a big team, but we are hard</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">working.</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR style=""></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">It's also important to note that Entourage first shipped in 2001 and was not</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">an Exchange client. Exchange users are important, but they certainly are</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">not our only users. We have to balance our decisions and resources such</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">that we deliver value for both sets of users. It's my belief we can do this</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">in a win-win manner, such as the 11.2.5 release earlier this year that</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">provided Sync Services and Spotlight support--features that benefit all</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">users. Nonetheless, while I'd love to solve each and every problem for each</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">and every user, we simply cannot do so.</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR style=""></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Here is a bit of insight--we make decisions on what we are going to do by</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">gathering your feedback. Generally, we make better decisions if you provide</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">a priortized list of your needs and an idea of what trade-offs you'd make</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">(e.g. if you could have A and B but not C, would you rather just have C).</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">While not every user's needs are equal, we have a farily sophisticated</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">process for aggregating this feedback and determining how we can deliver the</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">most benefit to the largest number of users. Last year's Service Pack 2 is</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">a solid example of this: among other things, we added full delegation</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">support, permissions, sharing, stronger calendaring, better GAL support,</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">while fixing a large number of poor design decisions from the past. All of</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">these were at the top of nearly every bit of prioritized feedback we</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">received. Your lists aren't empty now, but, for many of you, what once was</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">request #8 is now #2.</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR style=""></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">So, what's the best way to provide feedback? I don't think this list is the</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">place to do so--Mac Enterprise is a great community for practicing Mac</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">enterprise experts. MacBUers are reading here to get an idea of your</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">issues, but generally not responding as to avoid hijacking the value of this</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">community. Instead, here are some suggestions (the appropriateness of each</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">varies depeneding on the feedback):</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR style=""></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">1. Account Reps, if you have them</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">2. Product support (for problems with existing behavior)</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">3. Entourage newsgroups on microsoft.com</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">4. Entourage Talk mailing list</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">5. We're always at WWDC and MacWorld SF</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR style=""></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">I also read every blog post with the word "Entourage" in it via Technorati</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">(yes, I read a lot about the TV show). There are a lot of ways to share</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">feedback--you may not always get a response, but that hardly means we didn't</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">hear nor consider it. We want to make Entourage a great product. But we're</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">not the judge of that, you are. We can only get there by knowing what you</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">want.</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR style=""></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">-Andy</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR style=""></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">---</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Andy Ruff (<A href="mailto:aruff@microsoft.com">aruff@microsoft.com</A>)</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Lead Program Manager, Entourage</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Macintosh Business Unit, Microsoft</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR style=""></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">_____________________________________________________</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Subscription Options and Archives</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><A href="http://listserv.cuny.edu/archives/macenterprise.html">http://listserv.cuny.edu/archives/macenterprise.html</A></DIV></BLOCKQUOTE></BLOCKQUOTE></BLOCKQUOTE><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV></BODY></HTML>