So not sure how many of you here have been following this, but Microsoft has made an announcement saying that the rendering engine will CONTINUE to be WORD in the next version of Outlook. This of course will continue to heavily impact how your emails will render or not render for several years (did I mention I use a MAC).

I make the assumption here that many already understand the issues with Outlook 2007:

• no support for background images (HTML or CSS)
• no support for forms
• no support for Flash, or other plugins (not that this is a big thing and I don't advocate it)
• no support for CSS floats
• no support for replacing bullets with images in unordered lists
• no support for CSS positioning
• no support for animated GIFs

This information obviously prompted an interesting grassroots use of social media (twitter) Fixoutlook.org where you can file a petition against this.

People like email-standards.org have been advocating a list of recommendation the Outlook team should consider and also posted some GREAT examples of what this will do to your email rendering.

The Outlook team themselves have even posted a response to all this titled "The Power of Word in Outlook"

Now, I know this might be a bit early in the development process and say specifically that this will hopefully NOT continue to happen, but my past experiences with a large company like Microsoft is that they will do what they want no matter how much of a cry is put out there. I for one am still not happy about their community involvment even over the past 10-15 years in email. Please visit http://www.fixoutlook.org and let the Microsoft Office development team know your thoughts.

-Dennis

Eloqua

Don't Just Send, Deliver!

Comments

It seems like the most productive path towards convincing Microsoft is to truly establish a recognized HTML standard for email and ratify it by multiple organizations of which Microsoft is a member. The first two that come to mind for me are the ESPC and the IAB.