First of all, to the consumer, its of absolutely no relevance how larg
corporations work. That's the corporations problem. The thing i
dispute here is whether or not we, as the consumers, are JUSTIFIED i
expecting 2 Microsoft applications that do basically the same thin
being able to share data. Whether Microsoft is a multi-national billio
dollar company or 2 ppl in a garage tapping away at a computer, WE a
the consumers would still have the same EXPECTATION. Outlook an
outlook express ALREADY share data, so why did they leave out groups?
Microsoft is RENOWNED for keeping its file formats etc to itself. Ye
funnily enough there are programs out there that can both READ an
WRITE microsoft files(office etc). There are programs that can conver
to and from various other formats including those used by Microsoft. S
if programmers who have NO contact with the MS programming teams aroun
the world as you put it can figure out how to get stuff like this don
then why shouldn't we expect two teams (as you say) in the SAME compan
to not do the same?
There are examples of disparate teams all over the world working o
different projects. Do you think all the Linux developers live in th
same town? Look at SourceForge
http://sourceforge.net , thousands o
projects , thousands of people working on them from disparat
geographic regions. Heck , There are a number of software packages
some written by Microsoft (MS SourceSafe) itself that are supposed t
allow distributive code development. In this day and age geographi
location is of no consequence. I live in the Caribbean , yet being
software developer myself I work with systems and teams in the US
Finland and other Caribbean territories. THAT's the power of th
INTERNET, information exchange.
Microsoft itself SELLS a Group Collaboration Tool called Microsof
Sharepoin
(
http://www.microsoft.com/office/sharepoint/prodinfo/overview.mspx
which, in THEIR OWN WORDS
"enables enterprises to develop an intelligent portal that seamlessl
connects users, teams, and knowledge so that people can take advantag
of relevant information across business processes to help them wor
more efficiently"
or what about ANOTHER Microsoft Product, LiveMeetin
(
http://www.microsoft.com/office/livemeeting/prodinfo/default.mspx)
which "enables you to collaborate online with colleagues, customers
and partners in real time, in groups of two or even thousands—with jus
a PC, and an Internet connection."
Why should we use these products when , as you would have us believe
it can't be done?
Also, its not as if its a huge amount of data that would be required t
implement it either. All that would be needed is a document from th
Outlook Express Team outlining the format of their Contacts Group
implementation. This document should already exist as part of thei
project documentation anywayz and the relevant sections should be les
than 10 pages, if so long. So all they'd have to do is EMAIL i
(probably using Outlook hehe) to the OUTLOOK Team for them to add thei
existing import filter. End of story.
What I don't understand is why you're making excuses for something lik
this when in truth the critique is necessary for better products to com
forth. Who knows , maybe why its not possible is that no one at M
thought of it and it was an honest oversight; and those users wh
wanted it were content to sit on their laurels and say "oh, thats ho
big corporations are...".
The fact that we've accepted the mediocrity that Microsoft occasionall
puts out has resulted in it taking far too long for them to come to a
acceptable standard/solution.
Stop making excuses for mediocrity
