Posted: 13th Aug, 2003 By: MarkJ
We can't help but feel that MS shot itself in the foot when they moved away from making any new standalone Internet Explorer developments. Sadly the software giant has now chosen to follow a similar path with its hugely popular e-mail client, Outlook Express:
"[Outlook Express] just sits where it is," said Dan Leach, lead product manager for Microsoft's information worker product management group. "The technology doesn't go away, but no new work is being done. It is consumer email in an early iteration, and our investment in the consumer space is now focused around Hotmail and MSN. That's where we're putting the emphasis in terms of new investment and new development work."
While Outlook Express has always been most popular with individual consumers, many business users have also utilised it, in part because it is part of its default Windows install. Microsoft executives are hoping those users will now switch to the full-blown Outlook client (and pay for an Office licence in the process).Many would agree that the combination of both Internet Explorer and Outlook Express virtually handed Microsoft their entire online market; failing to recognise the needs of ordinary users is a risky business.
On the bright side and free open-source projects, specifically Mozilla, will no doubt rejoice at the news. We've already noticed a rapidly growing number of ISP Review visitors switching from IE to Mozilla, a trend thats set to continue. More @
ZDNet.