So does Entourage 2008 sync Exchange tasks and categories?

[KMiller]

I was looking forward to TASKS and ToDo lists syncing with Exchange so that I could get them on my BlackBerry. So now what. I'm the IT guy for a company of 65 and we are rolling out more and more MacBooks.

I did hear today that IBM Will be rolling out Lotus Notes Sutie and their Server for Mac. Maybe they will get it right.

 

[disgruntledandbummedout]

I'm an IT manager and our company can see absolutely NO REASON to upgrade to the new client. We're definitely going to look into "alternatives" to the Entourage suite.

This is ludicrous that they still haven't done anything to correct a problem that every single Entourage User has been pining for almost a half a decade. Wouldn't this be the FIRST thing you would do?

Microsoft - SHAME ON YOU.

 

[Ru]

and now will not. This is a major issue for me. I was hoping to get rid of outlook on parallelis and now it seems like impossible without tasks and notes...

 

[Guest]

I was going to buy the upgrade for me and several folks in our office. If it does not sync tasks and notes and EVERYTHING I can do in Parallels with Outlook 2003, then why in the world did they even release an upgrade.

I have been waiting for years for this upgrade and now find out it is not what I need.

I will pass.

 

[Andy Ruff]

Half a decade ago, Entourage did not even talk to Exchange. We have been
consistently and regularly adding Exchange functionality to Entourage, many
of them in regular, free updates. 2008 brought a number of new features:

* Out of Office
* Kerberos Single Sign-on
* Free/Busy Detailing
* To Do flag sync
* Delegation over HTTP


We realize there are shortcomings and some of them are painful. However, we
want to make sure we build a reliable product. Not just check features. We
stepped back from features and took the time to improve the app¹s quality
and reliability. Without doing so, it would have been much harder to
deliver more Exchange functionality in the future as we plan to do. You
will find Entourage 2008 much more reliable when using existing Exchange
functionality such as calendaring and mailbox synchronization.

-Andy

 

[Andy_Ruff]

Hey folks, I'm the Lead Program Manager for Entourage. Here's the deal...

We know you want task and notes sync and we are planning on delivering them. Since Exchange was first introduced into Entourage four years ago, we've regularly delivered features often in free updates. This iterative process has let us get them out there and learn from you about your expectations of Entourage within your business.

In 2008, we decided to take a step-back from pounding more features into the application and focus on making the app more reliable and robust. For example, calendaring in 2008 is far more reliable than it was in the past. The focus on quality and reliability was aimed to provide a stronger foundation for where we'll go next. You may not agree with this way of building the product and I certainly hear your frustrations, but we want to make sure that we're delivering reliable solutions, not just feature checklists.

 

[James]

I use Outlook 07 all day at work ive just installed Mac Office 08 at home and feel cheated. Sort out the sync issues above or the Mac community, a lot of who got a Mac to get rid of the blue screen of death, will simply abandon you.

Mac Office 08 does not look or feel fresh, merely an update, more like Office 06.

So please make it feel and look similar to Office 07 for PC and give it the same functionality at least, is that so much to ask?

 

[Jeremy Black]

Microsoft Guys,

I have only been using a Mac for about 15 months. However, when I first setup Entourage 2004 I was sure that I had done something wrong as none of my categories synced over. After some research, I discovered that not only will I have to forget about categories, I lost to-do sync as well. I thought, Wow, that unfortunate, but surely 2008 will have this functionality (since it is all over any forum that you read about this product). I just don't understand how you guys missed this. But hey, at least there is a little floating reminder box...

 

[dantrimble]

You should keep an eye on MacMojo, the official company blog. In the mean time, click on Send Feedback o Entourage inside Entourage's help menu to send Microsoft your feedback.

-- Michel Bintener Microsoft MVP

Michael, Andy Ruff & others on the Office:Mac team,

This can't be a serious statement from Michael...? I don't mean any disrespect, but your Entourage community has been screaming bloody hell about it's poor Exchange and synching support for FOUR YEARS. We waited FOUR YEARS for this upgrade, and Microsoft failed miserably to meet the demands of its users.

Serious question...is this because you're the Macintosh Business Unit at Microsoft? Are you guys just not taken seriously and appropriately prioritized within the company for obvious reasons? Or is this just another massive oversight?

I've worked in engineering for years, so I know all too well that what seems like a simple change is not necessarily simple. But FOUR YEARS is a long time to be screaming about something and then still not have it implemented.

SmartArt and nice templates in Word are beautiful, and it's nice to have that consistency with Office System 2007. But there's an underlying foundation of functionality that we are STILL waiting for.

Click on Send Feedback? With all due respect, you must be joking. What on earth would make you think anyone in this community would continue to bother after your team fails yet AGAIN to deliver what we've ALREADY been sending feedback on for FOUR YEARS?

What's the point? Clearly, program management has been unsuccessful in prioritizing needs of the market versus engineering timelines. I'm quite sure this market would have even preferred no new release until you could get it fixed than to be miserably disappointed yet again.

Apple now commands 8% of the market, and we all know that number is growing. No one here is stupid enough to think it will ever come close to Microsoft Windows' dominance, but it is still growing. More importantly, cross-platform usage is growing within corporations. I work for a 100 person tech company that is doubling every year. Half of our team uses Apple and half uses Windows. Most of the 8% of the market expect to have to use some level of Parallels, Virtual PC or some other virtualization service since not everything is available for our platform of choice. But why continue to demonstrate Microsoft Office's complete lack of commitment to cross-platform compatibility?

The Microsoft Silverlight team got it right with cross-platform compatibility. Why can't the Entourage team?

Regards,
Dan

 

[\lewis\ @gmail]

Serious question...is this because you're the Macintosh Business Unit at
Microsoft? Are you guys just not taken seriously and appropriately
prioritized within the company for obvious reasons? Or is this just another
massive oversight?

I think it's that MSFT does not want a fully working Mac client for exchange
servers since that might translate to users running screaming from Windows
Vista, thus impacting MSTF sales figures.

 

[Andy_Ruff]

Dan,

Four years ago Entourage didn't:

- Support multiple calendars and address books
- Allow you to set permissions on Exchange folders
- Open shared calendars, folders, or address books
- Quickly access public folders
- View non-mail public folders
- Use smart cards for encryption
- Search via Spotlight
- Delegate to other Exchange users
- Get detailed information about users in the GAL
- Keep your Exchange contacts and calendars seperated from personal
- Mark events or contacts in shared folders as private
- Reschedule events regularly
- Cancel recurring meetings
- Set the Out of Office Message
- Synchronize todo flags and dates
- Automatically configure your Exchange account
- View the quotas on your Exchange server
- Conversation grouping/threading
- Be notified of upcoming password expirations
- Synchronize with .Mac, iCal, Address Book, or your devicees
- Authenticate with Kerberos
- See free/busy details when scheduling meetings
- Respect compliance folders on your server
- True, multi-threaded sync with more user control

All of those things came between 2004 and today. We did not sit idle. Entourage has gotten several large, free updates. 2008 continues with an interval of improvements. If you have an original 2004 CD, try installing that and compare that to where you are today. Then tell me that we haven't done a lot to try and address these issues. We know you want more, we plan to deliver. But do not deny the fact that we haven't been working hard to do so for some time.

As for prioritizing, please keep in mind that what you want isn't necessarily the same as what others want. I'm sure you would be happy to lop off some of the above items, but that doesn't mean a) that's what other customers are telling us or b) that the engineering cost of those features is equal to your requests.

 

[savage]

It is an entourage that with all that development time MS have managed to forget what people want. The key thing people wanted was a fully operational exchange client prohram(thats what the extra money is for ????) teh ability to send complex HTML messages, better HTML tools and the ability to edit a message that has been sent to you, What the hell is going on. I am now thinking that we will move to using outlook in Parallels, and certainly will not bother "upgrading????" to 2008. Bell whistles and disappointment !

 

[Matthew Vandergrift]

I use tasks and categories a lot. That they are missing from Entourage makes my life slightly more difficult. Many of my colleagues do not use tasks, but they all use the calendar and contacts. It's unfortunate that some features did not make it into 2008, but I think you made the right choice.

The real question is if synchronized tasks will make it into a future upgrade.

 

[jobarules]

To not include a conduit for me, and everyone else, to sync their Palm/Treo devices is asinine, honestly.

I don't mean any personal disrespect, but it is incredibly frustrating to learn that, at a minimum, I can't even count on the sync ability Entourage 2004 had with my Treo smartphone.

I'm sort of dead in the water here. You've got to address this, like, immediately.

 

[Bob Venero President]

As one of the largest solution providers in the country Future Tech is trying to integrate Apple into our large customer base. The challenge that we have which we thought would be addressed was similar functionality so that corporate america can take advantage of multiple platforms in their organizations. Since we have not accomplished this with the current release is there any timeline you have that you can share with everyone related to tasks. I will tell you most of the organizations we work with utilize this feature. Lets stem the tide of the complaints and see how we can address the challenge moving forward. I am sure if you said ok there will be an update in 90 days many more people would buy the product.

 

[Steve de Mena]

I'm an IT manager and our company can see absolutely NO REASON to
upgrade to the new client. We're definitely going to look into
"alternatives" to the Entourage suite.

What is the Entourage "suite"?

This is ludicrous that they still haven't done anything to correct a
problem that every single Entourage User has been pining for almost a
half a decade.

And that problem would be....???

Steve

 

[Steve de Mena]

I was looking forward to TASKS and ToDo lists syncing with Exchange so
that I could get them on my BlackBerry. So now what. I'm the IT guy for
a company of 65 and we are rolling out more and more MacBooks.

I did hear today that IBM Will be rolling out Lotus Notes Sutie and
their Server for Mac. Maybe they will get it right.

Lotus Notes has been out for the Mac for years.

Steve

 

[JÓM]

Upgraded to office for 2008 for MAC, its chronic..... well done graphic designers, but where were the product marketing and software guys??? How productive is SW without a functional task module??

Rubbish,

James

 

[Jamie Lupton]

I also rushed out to buy Office 2008 with what I thought would be a safe assumption of having categories and task synchronisation.

I cannot believe that Microsoft have left this obvious but important functionality out. If you read this Microsoft, then I for one suggest you add this functionality in on the next update. If you do not, I can only see the decision as a stealth tactic to stop users being able to use exchange fully on a mac. OWA doesn't work brilliantly either as its designed for IE and not firefox or Safari.

Sort your act out after you've relieved me of a few hundred pounds.

 

[Steven_Kane]

Microsoft,

Please outsource your Macintosh Business Unit projects to Apple. I trust Steve Jobs & Co. will get the projects finished properly and quickly.

I love my Mac (and everything Apple) because it just works. I wish I could say the same for MS Entourage.

I'm not kidding about having Apple take on this task. Have them rebuild Entourage from the ground up to include, at minimum, all of the features and functionality of Outlook with BCM.

I know you have been taking a lot of heat from Entourage users. My intent is not to simply add fuel to the fire. I just want Entourage and Exchange to work for me.

Thank you and best regards,

Steve Kane