Post #2714434
2025-08-03 16:10 UTC
@void@mastodon.sdf.org @zanchey@aus.social I'm not sure what you mean by "old Outlook", but in 1997, Outlook was a desktop-only client for Microsoft Exchange, and HotMail was a web-only internet e-mail client. Exchange was primarily for in-company communication, with an internet gateway bolted on (and it showed).
Microsoft have a habit of using the same name for different thnigs, and different names for the same thing, so it all gets a bit muddled from there. If you opened a HotMail account when it launched, and kept it open, it would now be branded Outlook. Meanwhile, the desktop client no longer has a local database synced over a proprietary protocol, it's just an HTML-based client for an online service.
So I've no idea if the implementation has anything in common with either, but what Microsoft now calls "Outlook" feels a lot more like a web-mail service with bells and whistles, than the original proprietary messaging system.
Replies (1)
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@rkd993@aus.social 2025-08-05 11:37
@imsop@tech.lgbt @void@mastodon.sdf.org @zanchey@aus.social also lots of effects of changing dev cultures and countries across product sets along with young devs making changes that are cosmetic (?), no sense of product history, and a string of changing PMs with similar problems. A sad decline since the Office group of the early 1990s. A lot of long and complicated history that reflects changes at CEO level and ripple effects throughout the company as well as throughout all the partners, others and training companies who did (us among many others) their best to keep it coherent for customers. Would fill many books. 👀