Re: Scripting OS X Mail app
Re: Scripting OS X Mail app
- Subject: Re: Scripting OS X Mail app
- From: Paul Berkowitz <email@hidden>
- Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2002 00:20:09 -0800
On 1/30/02 11:47 PM, "Reinhold Penner" <email@hidden> wrote:
>
I agree that Entourage is a decent email app. However, its history is
>
the exact same reason why I would encourage everyone to boycott
>
Entourage. MicroSoft's strategy has forced out Claris Emailer and Eudora
>
from the market by launching the free Outlook Express, only to
>
re-introduce in the form of Entourage with a price tag after Emailer's
>
demise and Eudora's close encounter with the axe.
As far as Emailer goes, that's completely untrue, Reinhold. I'm sure we'll
hear from Michelle Steiner, who was working for Emailer at the time it was
axed by Apple, who owned Claris, which had bought it from its originators,
Fog City. Apple axed Emailer before OE Mac existed. The progenitor of
Emailer, Jud Spencer, who had started it at Fog City and went with it to
Claris, was hired by MS to make OE a Mac app. He brought a few of his
Emailer team with him, including Dan Crevier, its free-lance applescript
implementer, who's now in charge, with Jud still a developer.
Apple then (several months later) made their deal with MS to have OE and IE
as default internet clients, which has helped both companies. If MS had not
had that arrangement, they probably would not have made the Office suite (a
fiasco with Word 6 which mimicked the Windows version) into a much more
Mac-oriented set of apps but whose documents work cross-platform. Without
the cross-platform operability, tens or hundreds of thousands of businesses
which can run Macs for parts of their businesses would have ditched them for
Wintels. (My guess is that MS earns more from the combined sales of Office
Mac and Office Windows in these same companies than they would from
all-Wintel companies running licensed Windows on cheap Dells plus Word
Perfect or Lotus. But i don't really know.)
Eudora too had a free version, v3.1.3 at last count, I think. I used to use
it. It was when I finally gave up on its crumminess that I looked around for
another email app, and tried out OE which was also free. Eudora chose to
drop the free version in favor of their present scheme: they weren't forced
to drop the free version by MS. They also chose to make a commercial Windows
version of Eudora, which must sell a lot more than the Mac version. And if
Apple had wanted to continue the deal with MS, OE would have been carbonized
as a free OS X default email app. Instead, Apple chose to make their own.
Why should MS continue to develop OE for free? As a public service? It's
hardly a devious scheme to want to continue with their profitable Entourage.
I'm not sure I'd be able to afford it myself without my university's
licensing arrangement, and then later beta-testing freebies have made it a
moot point for me.
But I'll desist now. I've found before that it doesn't really make any
difference what the facts are where MS is concerned. There are people who
just won't touch an MS product, no matter how good it might be. Fine. If
you're happy with Mail, that's good.
--
Paul Berkowitz