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Microsoft makes Outlook Express U-turn
Silicon.com ^ | August 15, 2003

Posted on 08/15/2003 10:30:34 AM PDT by HAL9000

Just days after announcing that it planned to halt development on Outlook Express, Microsoft has been forced to change its position following internal confusion and an outcry from customers.

As reported earlier this week on silicon.com Microsoft had planned to stop product development on Outlook Express, which forms part of the Internet Explorer code bundled with consumer versions of Windows.

At the time Dan Leach, Office product manager, said: "The technology doesn't go away, but no new work is being done."

Under that vision, consumers would have been directed towards the company's MSN software, while businesses would be encouraged to purchase Office, which includes the full Outlook client.

However, Leach has now distanced himself from his original comments, claiming that while Microsoft had originally planned to halt new work on Outlook Express, the situation has since changed.

"I sat down with the Windows team today, and they tell me my comments were inaccurate," Leach said Friday. "Outlook Express was in sustain engineering, but customers asked for continued improvement, and we are doing that. Microsoft will continue its innovation around the email experience in Windows."

Leach blamed communication problems for the confusion.

"The Outlook Express team has been in the process of making this change known inside Microsoft," he said. "They just hadn't reached me before I left for Asia."

The lack of internal communication underlines the growing challenge faced by Microsoft as it attempts to co-ordinate software development activities over an increasingly diverse range of markets.



TOPICS: News/Current Events; Technical
KEYWORDS: email; exploit; internet; lookoutexpress; lowqualitycrap; malware; microsoft; outlook; outlookemail; outlookexpress; securityflaw; techindex; windows
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To: rmvh
People can moan and complain all day long...but Microsoft remains #1....

And if Linux and other OSes aren't a threat, then why worry about them, right?

Reason?.... Because they have excellent technology and fine marketing....People buy their products as the best available.

"Best" is a very subjective and flexible term. A lot of people select software packages and operating systems because they are what they are used to or simply because they are #1, not because they have excellent technology. For the longest time, people wanted PCs so they could steal borrow software from work so they didn't have to pay for it. We'll see if Microsoft's activation makes a strong dent in this incentive. And once you've hired and trained staff to work on a certain operating system, there is certainly momentum to stick with what they know.

What I find particularly interesting is that Microsoft became dominant largely because the hardware it runs on was open. IBM built hardware that it was unable to maintain a proprietary hold on (it tried) but people cloned the BIOS and created their own non-IBM hardware that could run DOS. Because the hardware was open and any vendor could manufacture PCs, the prices dropped and the PC became the most affordable hardware platform available and competition in the OS sphere via work-alike DOS programs and other OSes kept the OS costs from skyrocketing.

In other words, the PC became the number one hardware platform because it was open and no one vendor controlled it. Being open kept it cheap. Keeping it cheap made it successful. There is a lesson somewhere in there for Microsoft advocates...

41 posted on 08/15/2003 12:01:46 PM PDT by Question_Assumptions
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To: tictoc; justlurking; discostu; Joe Bonforte; RicocheT
Thanks much to all, that did the trick, guess I should have looked around a little huh. :) Didn't even occur to me that the patch would have changed my settings.
42 posted on 08/15/2003 12:03:36 PM PDT by agrace
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To: EternalVigilance
"Oh, you mean Outbreak?"

I thought it was called MS Lookout! Excess.
43 posted on 08/15/2003 12:04:11 PM PDT by No Truce With Kings (The opinions expressed are mine! Mine! MINE! All Mine!)
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To: HAL9000; All
Never having used either, what's the difference between Outlook and Outlook Express?

Is the latter a "lite" version of the former?
44 posted on 08/15/2003 12:04:55 PM PDT by martin_fierro (A v v n c v l v s M a x i m v s)
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To: B Knotts
Don't spread FUD.

Hey, when it's all you've got to work with...

45 posted on 08/15/2003 12:05:09 PM PDT by Question_Assumptions
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To: HAL9000

'Nuff said.

46 posted on 08/15/2003 12:09:28 PM PDT by mhking
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To: agrace
That kind of security got added with one of the patches, they defaulted it to on. Count yourself lucky they've got it on at the server level where I work, it's really dumb though, it's just tagged on the file extension so I just add a .scan to the end of everything and it flies through fine.
47 posted on 08/15/2003 12:14:37 PM PDT by discostu (just a tuna sandwich from another catering service)
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To: zeugma
I seriously doubt anything widely used that was compromised will stay that way for long.

You also "seriously doubted" that this kind of thing could happen in the first place. But it did. That's not overly reassuring.
48 posted on 08/15/2003 12:48:13 PM PDT by Bush2000
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To: HAL9000
Seeking employment: Mr. Dan Leach, formerly of Microsft.
49 posted on 08/15/2003 12:50:50 PM PDT by beckett
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To: HAL9000
Yes, Outlook Express is designed to function like a gay bathhouse.

BAW HAW HAW HAW HAW HAW HAW!!!

Best post I've seen allday!

50 posted on 08/15/2003 12:59:47 PM PDT by FierceDraka ("I am not a number - I am a FREE MAN!")
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To: js1138
Someone who had access at the time of the hack, or someone who had left the project?

I don't know. All I know is that it was a local exploit, not a remote one.

51 posted on 08/15/2003 1:18:58 PM PDT by kevkrom (This tag line for rent)
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To: HAL9000
Yes, Outlook Express is designed to function like a gay bathhouse.

Classic Freudian Projection: "A defense mechanism in which the individual attributes to other people impulses and traits that he himself has but cannot accept. It is especially likely to occur when the person lacks insight into his own impulses and traits."
52 posted on 08/15/2003 1:19:03 PM PDT by Bush2000
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To: Knitebane
The hacked site wasn't "the Linux development servers," it was the Free Software Foundation FTP site. It houses no Linux core source code, only code for GNU userland tools.

... like "gcc", the C compiler used to build the kernel and used to build most major server apps like Apache, etc...

In other words, Yikes!

53 posted on 08/15/2003 1:19:35 PM PDT by TheEngineer
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To: kevkrom
Local meaning inside the building? Inside the VPN? What exactly?
54 posted on 08/15/2003 1:25:33 PM PDT by js1138
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To: TheEngineer
like "gcc", the C compiler

...which has been verified to not have been trojaned.

Having an insider gather passwords from a download site used by lots of people is bad enough without adding unconfirmed, inaccurate or misleading information.

55 posted on 08/15/2003 1:27:03 PM PDT by Knitebane
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To: Bush2000
Classic Freudian Projection: "A defense mechanism in which the individual attributes to other people impulses and traits that he himself has but cannot accept. It is especially likely to occur when the person lacks insight into his own impulses and traits."

So that's why you call so may people liars.

56 posted on 08/15/2003 1:28:05 PM PDT by Knitebane
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To: Knitebane
unconfirmed, inaccurate or misleading information.

What in my post was unconfirmed, inaccurate, or misleading?

57 posted on 08/15/2003 1:29:21 PM PDT by TheEngineer
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To: TheEngineer
What in my post was unconfirmed, inaccurate, or misleading?

It's in the context of your post.

The FSF site got hacked, some files were trojaned.

You then state that GCC is housed on that site.

...and leave it at that, thus implying that GCC has been trojaned.

The FSF put out a call for people to compare their software with MD5 sums from before the hack. There is no evidence that GCC was trojaned.

That makes your post both inaccurate and misleading.

58 posted on 08/15/2003 1:34:59 PM PDT by Knitebane
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To: TheEngineer
Here.

Learn the whole story.

59 posted on 08/15/2003 1:41:15 PM PDT by Knitebane
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To: B Knotts
Thanks for the nomination! };^D )
60 posted on 08/15/2003 1:45:34 PM PDT by RJayneJ (To see pictures of Jayne's quilt: http://bulldogbulletin.lhhosting.com/page50.htm)
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