Microsoft Entourage

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Microsoft Entourage

Entourage: Mac 2008 showing the welcome message.
Developer(s)	Microsoft
Stable release	12.1.0  (2008-05-14; 17 months ago)[1]
Operating system	Mac OS X
Type	Email client
License	Proprietary
Website	Microsoft Entourage: Mac 2008

Microsoft Entourage is an e-mail client and personal information manager developed by Microsoft for Mac OS 8.5 and higher. Microsoft first released Entourage in October 2000 as part of the Microsoft Office 2001 office suite; Office 98, the previous version of Microsoft Office for Mac OS, included Outlook Express 5. The current version is Entourage:Mac 2008, released as part of Microsoft Office:Mac 2008 on January 15, 2008.

Microsoft announced on August 13, 2009, that Entourage would be replaced by Outlook for Macintosh in the next release of Office for Mac, due in late 2010.^[2]

Overview

My Day, a mini schedule

Entourage provides email, a calendar, address book, task list, note list, and project manager. With Entourage 2004, Microsoft began offering a Project Center, which allows the user to create and organize projects. Information may come from within Entourage or outside the program. Entourage supports retrieving email using POP, IMAP^[3], and (for Microsoft Exchange servers) WebDAV^[4].

Entourage 2008 features a new "My Day" utility, which assists in organizing one's day, and cites (in the welcome message) improvements to search speed, "to do" flags, improved junk mail and fishing (phishing) protection, as well as quick navigation via favorites and customizable toolbars.

Features

Entourage supports some Mac OS technologies, like the Spotlight search engine and AppleScript; however, the use of a monolithic database makes it difficult to back up incrementally with Time Machine. Entourage also maintains a separate Address Book, but allows synchronization of contacts and calendar events through Sync Services^[5].

Comparison to Outlook

Unlike the other applications in the Mac version of the Microsoft Office suite, Entourage does not share a name with its Microsoft Windows counterpart. Microsoft claims that Entourage was intended "to address an entirely different audience"^[6]. Entourage had its origins in Outlook Express 5 on the Mac, as well as Claris Emailer^[7] and contained "no ported code, and no Office code"^[8]. Nevertheless, Microsoft has positioned Entourage as a "similar" product for Macintosh customers on Exchange servers^[9].

As a client for Microsoft Exchange

Entourage has included support for Microsoft Exchange servers since August 4, 2003, when the Exchange Update for Entourage X was released. This early release required the use of IMAP for mail connectivity and WebDAV for address and calendar functionality. (Subsequent versions have dropped the requirement for IMAP and rely solely on WebDAV.) Users complained of the lack of a variety of functions present in Outlook for Windows and Outlook 2001^[10].

Subsequent versions of Entourage have added some of the missing functionality. However, full parity with Outlook as an Exchange client is still not available in Entourage 2008^[11]. Synchronization of tasks and notes with an Exchange server is still not available. Many Exchange users have been vocal^[12] in denouncing Microsoft's omission of these features ^[13]. Microsoft claims to have prioritized "reliability" over expanded Exchange support in Entourage 2008^[14].

One major shortcoming of Entourage is its inability to handle complex HTML. While messages can be received and viewed correctly, they cannot be forwarded without all formatting being stripped out. As an example, an airline confirmation received from, say, Imaginary Airlines, will not be able to be forwarded without all of the pictorial information being reduced to links, rendering the e-mail unreadable. A workaround for this is to choose "Forward as attachment" which forwards the message as a .eml file, and preserves complex HTML formatting.

An additional limitation is the inability to attach what is referred to as an "Item" in Outlook to a message while it is being composed since there is no menu choice to allow this. Instead, a user needs to find the item to be forwarded, i.e., a Contact, select it, then choose Forward as vCard from the menu.

It is also not possible to create or manage server side rules on the Exchange server, so filtering only works when the Entourage application is running.

Entourage import/export limitations

Entourage cannot natively read Outlook Personal Folder files and cannot read Outlook archived emails without first re-importing them back into the main Windows Outlook database.^{[citation needed]} As a result, this makes it impossible to directly transfer email data from Outlook (Windows) into Entourage (Mac).

Although Microsoft has released a PST Import Tool for Entourage 2004 for Mac, this does not solve the problem of exporting data from Windows to Mac, because this utility can only import PST files from Outlook 2001 for the Mac.^{[citation needed]} It is incompatible with any PST files created with Outlook for Windows.^{[citation needed]} In other words, the Import Tool only allows transfer from Mac to Mac, not Windows to Mac.^{[original research?]}

One can import a Windows Outlook 2000 compatible PST to Mac Outlook 2001, and then use the utility to import into Entourage, however, that route is not feasible for most users who do not have access to the obsolete Mac Outlook 2001 software.^{[original research?]}

Macworld indicates that Windows Outlook messages can be transferred to Apple Mail or Entourage by using Mozilla Thunderbird as an intermediate agent. Thunderbird on Windows is used to import the mail from Outlook. Then the converted mail file is moved from the Windows Thunderbird directory to the Mac and the import feature is used on Mac Mail or Entourage^[15]. However, message attachments will be lost in the conversion to Thunderbird.

Commercial third-party software is available to facilitate the transfer of Outlook data to Entourage. But those using the mbox format will not be able to respect any subfolder hierarchy since the mbox format doesn't support it.

Other alternative solutions include synchronizing : to an iPod Touch or iPhone through iTunes; using Apple MobileMe service; using an IMAP-enabled email provider; using a Microsoft Exchange server.^[16]

Version History

• Outlook Express 4^[17] or 5 (Entourage's predecessor), included with Microsoft Office 98 Macintosh Edition (version 8)

{Sources contradicted each other as to ver. 4 or ver. 5}

• Entourage 2001, included with Microsoft Office 2001 (version 9)
• Entourage X, included with Office X (version X)
• Entourage 2004^[18], included with Office 2004 for Mac#Entourage_2004^[19] (version 11)
• Entourage 2008, included with Office 2008 for Mac (version 12)

See also

• Microsoft Office for the Mac Version History
• Comparison of e-mail clients
• List of personal information managers
• Comparison of office suites
• Outlook add-ins (primarily for Wintel)

References

1. ^ "Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac Service Pack 1 (12.1.0)". MacWindows.com. 2008. http://www.microsoft.com/mac/downloads.mspx?pid=Mactopia_Office2008&fid=395D1487-A3A6-4106-A0F8-4D6E1D6D89D2#viewer. Retrieved 2008-08-26. 
2. ^ Fried, Ina (2009-08-13). "Next Mac Office, due by 2010's end, gets Outlook". CNet News. http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-10308997-56.html. 
3. ^ "Accounts". Microsoft MVPs: The Entourage Help Page. 2008-08-21. http://www.entourage.mvps.org/accounts/index.html. Retrieved 2008-08-26. 
4. ^ "FAQs for Exchange 2004". Microsoft: The Entourage Help Page. 2008-08-17. http://www.entourage.mvps.org/exchange/faqs.html#exup10. Retrieved 2008-08-26. 
5. ^ Negrino, Tom (2008-01-21). "Microsoft Entourage 2008 - Superior depth of features bests Apple competitor". Macworld. http://www.macworld.com/article/131563/2008/01/entourage2008.html. 
6. ^ Bintener, Michel (2008-08-17). "Entourage is not Outlook". Microsoft: The Entourage Help Page. http://www.entourage.mvps.org/articles/entourage.html. Retrieved 2008-08-26. 
7. ^ Ross, Dianne (2007-05-20). "In the Beginning". Microsoft: The Entourage help Page. http://blog.entourage.mvps.org/2007/05/in_the_beginning.html. Retrieved 2008-08-26. 
8. ^ Shahine, Omar (2004-04-04). "Entourage: A journey to becoming an Office application". MSDN Blogs. http://blogs.msdn.com/omars/archive/2004/04/05/107468.aspx. Retrieved 2008-08-26. 
9. ^ "Working with Exchange Server". Microsoft. 2004-08-04. Archived from the original on 2005-02-07. http://web.archive.org/web/20050207151545/www.microsoft.com/mac/support.aspx?pid=exchange. Retrieved 2008-08-26. 
10. ^ "Using Entourage with Exchange Server Special Report". MacWindows.com. 2003-08-06. http://www.macwindows.com/entourage#8. Retrieved 2008-08-26. 
11. ^ Welch, John C. (2008-01-21). "How Entourage 2008 fares with Exchange - Update improves Mac-Exchange relationship, though some features still undone". Macworld. http://www.macworld.com/article/131730/2008/01/msftexchange.html. Retrieved 2008-08-26. 
12. ^ Smith, William M. (2008-01-17). "Prioritize your Exchange Needs!". http://blog.entourage.mvps.org/2008/01/prioritize_your_exchange_needs.html. Retrieved 2008-08-26. 
13. ^ Flynn, David (2008-01-17). "Office 2008 for Mac fails to deliver full Exchange support". APC Magazine. http://apcmag.com/7842/office_2008_for_mac_fails_to_deliver_full_exchange_support. Retrieved 2008-08-26. 
14. ^ Keizer, Gregg (2008-01-14). "In Mac Office 2008, reliability trumps Exchange support". Computerworld UK. http://www.computerworlduk.com/technology/applications/desktop/news-analysis/index.cfm?articleid=1094. Retrieved 2008-08-26. 
15. ^ Breen, Christopher (2008-04-30). "Evade E-mail Exasperation - You’ve got e-mail problems. We’ve got answers.". Macworld. http://www.macworld.com/article/133118/2008/04/workingmac2506.html. Retrieved 2008-08-26. 
16. ^ http://www.entourage.mvps.org/cross_platform/win_mac.html
17. ^ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Office_98_Macintosh_Edition
18. ^ http://download.microsoft.com/download/3/d/d/3ddaa17e-d508-4c28-98be-ca633ac3b7de/MicrosoftOfficeforMac2004ResourceKitv2.pdf
19. ^ http://www.microsoft.com/mac/products/office2004.mspx

External links

• Microsoft Entourage:Mac 2008 (official site)
• Inside Entourage by Amir - blog by M. Amir Haque in Microsoft Enterprise Messaging group
• Entourage Weblog (last updated June 2006)
• The Entourage Help Page
• The Entourage Help Blog
• Why did Microsoft replace Outlook for Mac with Entourage?

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