I’ve just had to use Microsoft Outlook for email. It is the first time I’ve sat with it in more than 7 years. I heard a colleague complaining about the spam in his mail box. Since I used to develop addins and extensions to Exchange and Outlook, I sat down to help clean out the junk and setup some rules… Ouch. what a mess. It seems that everyone must have left the MS farm back in 02 and what remains are the people who couldn’t get a job at a software shop.
What does this mean for the Microsoft future. Not much, since even a sinking ship that is that big will take years to fall below the water line.
This experience reminded me though of the three keys to the desktop. The keys to the user of software are the applications that they use. The main user experience is with:
- The Browser
- Email Client
- Spreadsheet
Microsoft appears to be down to the last item in the list. Not a very strong grip on the user.
