Re: Outlook 2007 still does not support newsgroup?

Well articulated, Don, not to mention a breath of fresh air! In our opinion,
these basic, useful features should definitely be included in Outlook, while
letting the Administrator or Owner ENABLE or DISABLE the features they do or
don't want for themselves! You're 100% correct in pointing out that many
other features could be equally abused, but are not targeted.

And talking about bloat, we actually think there would be a rather healthy
small business market for several additional features now absent from
Outlook. As a small business, we'd love to see additional modules that would
allow Outlook to become a true communications center for small businesses.

In otherwords, allow Outlook or a companion product to become a common
repository for ALL forms of communication including email, newsgroup
messages, rss feeds, faxes, voice messages, not to mention automated
answering, automated messaging, computer dialing for voice calls, voice call
recording, and video communications! It only seems logical to manage all
these forms of direct communication from one cental location.

Ironically, today's hardware is powerful enough, we have the disk space, so
why not provide an efficient program to manage ALL our small business or
personal home communications from one center? Over the years, there have
been several great comm programs that have nearly accomplished this end, so
how can we characterize these useful functions as 'BLOAT' for a Microsoft
product? We for one, would love to see a comprehensive, yet inexpensive,
solution for ALL of our small business and personal communications needs.

Thanks again, Don, finally an honest voice that appeals to a good sense of
reason.


************************
"Don Caton" wrote:

"Brian Tillman" <tillman1952@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:OiF5YC00GHA.3476@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx:

Don Caton <support@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

And the premise that newsgroups are not useful and have the potential
to be abused in a corporate environment is equally absurd.

While intelligent people may disagree on this, the fact remains that the
guys on the front row do not consider it absurd. Where I work, we have our
own internal NNTP server and it serves strictly local newsgroups. I had to
submit special exemption paperwork making a business case to allow our
firewall to be configured in such a manner as to permit access to the
msnews.microsoft.com NNTP server and it's the only external NNTP server
we're allowed to access. I had to _prove_ that the company would save money
by allowing access to these newsgroups.

Brian:

Sorry, that didn't come out the way I meant it.

Newsgroups have the potential to be abused, no question about it. What
I meant to say was that everything else you can do in Outlook has the
same potential to be abused as well. So why use this argument only
against newsgroups?

There are tons of RSS feeds that an employee could subscribe to that
have nothing to do with that person's work, but I don't see the same
argument being made against RSS feeds in OL 2007.

There is nothing inherently bad about newsgroups that made them
unsuitable for business use; they are an information source, just like
email, RSS, web sites, etc. Like everything else, newsgroups have the
potential to be abused, but access to them can be controlled via
firewalls and other means, just like your company does.

And if newsgroup access were added to OL then policy settings could also
be added to control or disable it.

From a purely selfish standpoint I don't care, as I will be able to
continue to sell my newsgroup add-in for OL2007. But IMO, none of the
reasons thrown about for not including them in OL2007 hold water. MS
might have a very good reason for not doing it, but only they know what
that is.

--
Don Caton


.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Outlook 2007 still does not support newsgroup?
    ... DISABLE the features they do or don't want! ... As a small business, we'd love to see additional modules that would ... allow Outlook to become a true communications center for small businesses. ... own internal NNTP server and it serves strictly local newsgroups. ...
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  • Re: Outlook 2007 still does not support newsgroup?
    ... Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook] ... As a small business, we'd love to see ... | communications center for small businesses. ... And the premise that newsgroups are not useful and have the ...
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    ... Thus OE will remain a useful application for newsgroups. ... As for other features, calendar, tasks, ... Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook] ... Post all replies to the group to keep the discussion intact. ...
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