Gareth,
With the introduction of SP2, Entourage has been improved substantially in
those Exchange areas it was deficient most - the ability to specify
permissions to share resources (calendars, etc.) with others, see quotas,
integration of the GAL (global address list), etc. These were significant
shortcomings that Microsoft has addressed and provided in SP2. It appears
now that the task is to bring on board other user features that are
important to some segments of the user base but not essential to most in an
Exchange environment.
Here are some good resources to consider:
http://www.microsoft.com/mac/products/entourage2004/entourage2004.aspx?pid=e
xup2004
http://blogs.msdn.com/entourage/default.aspx
http://www.bynkii.com/reviews/archives/2005/09/microsoft_entou.html
http://www.entourage.mvps.org/
However, there are a number of areas that I see the need to be address
before Entourage will be close to on par with its Windows counterpart as
follows:
1) Out of office reply mechanism. Work-around: Entourage user must use the
web interface (OWA) to do this.
2) Read receipts. Work-around: a variety of methods describe in this forum
such as adding mail-headers. However, nothing built into Entourage
3) No group contacts on server side. All my group contacts are local only
now. If I were away from my desk using OWA, I do not have access to those
groups.
4) No syncing of tasks or notes to the server.
5) No multiple flags (different colors, follow-up states)
6) No easy way to sort tasks by drag-and-drop or sequencing of user's choice
(like iTunes?).
7) Some power calendar usage may be missing - resource calendars? For
example, rooms may need to be added an account. Since I am not a power
calendar user, I don't know to what extent some power features may still be
missing. A number of users have posted about problems in particular with
accessing/using a group calendar (a calendar not associated with any one
individual)
8) Can't forward multiple messages as a single message with each forwarded
message as an attachment. Outlook can do this. Probably not a feature most
would miss.
9) Entourage calendaring has no method to view multiple calendars side by
side as Outlook. In Outlook, you place a check next to a person's account
to view that person's calendar or not. However. Entourage had improved
immensely in being able now to view each person's calendar separately.
10) OWA (web interface to Exchange) has a good but basic interface for
non-Windows non-Internet Explorer users. Windows users see an Outlook-like
interface. This is most of fantasy/wish that Microsoft improve the basic
interface a bit since it is highly unlikely that the premium version will
find its way to non-Windows non-Internet Explorer machines.
Here is a difference list that Microsoft published PRIOR to the SP2 release:
Differences between Entourage 2004 and Outlook for Mac
The following list of the notable differences between Entourage 2004 and
Outlook will help you plan Entourage 2004 deployment and diagnose Entourage
issues:
€ Entourage uses the WebDAV protocol to communicate with the Exchange server
and manage mail, Calendar, and contacts. Outlook uses a MAPI-based
architecture to communicate with the Exchange server.
€ Entourage provides no offline access to the Global Address List. Offline,
recently used addresses obtained from the Global Address List will appear in
the most recently used list provided in the To field of an Entourage
message. (I don't know if SP2 has provided offline access to the GAL)
€ Users cannot browse the Global Address List in Entourage (that is, scroll
the Global Address List from A to Z). (SP2 provides this feature)
€ Entourage does not support multiple Calendar or Contacts folders. This
applies to Delegation and public folders as well as to the main account.
(SP2 provides this feature, to public folder?)
€ Entourage does not support setting permissions.
(SP2 provides this functionality)
Working with Exchange Server
€ Entourage does not support disabling the Entourage user interface based on
permissions. (?)
€ Entourage does not support mapping from subscribed public folders in
Entourage to public folder favorites in Outlook. (?)
€ Entourage does not support Outlook forms, voting buttons, RTF message
formatting, or receipt tracking. (still missing)
€ Entourage does not support server-side rules (including out-of-office
messages). Entourage users connecting to an Exchange 2003 server can use
Outlook Web Access for out-of-office messages. (still missing)
€ Entourage does not support password expiration notification or the ability
to change the user account password. (SP2 provides this)
€ Entourage does not support quota management. (SP2 provides this)
€ Entourage does not support synchronizing Tasks or Notes to Exchange
servers. (still missing)
