Simplicity vs Customization

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My last Outlook as Organizer post about GMail like functionality got me thinking about the differences between Google and Microsoft. Google's biggest strength seems to be simplicity - their search is simple, their mail is simple, their news is simple. Plus of course, they all work. Outlook is an example of a program that sacrifices some simplicity for the sake of being customizable. Of course, this increases our test matrix quite a bit. It also tends to clutter the user interface. But it also empowers people to work the way they want to. I believe that Outlook 2003's new navigation model and mail reading experience are a step towards the simplicity that users want without sacrificing the customization.

Comments

  • Anonymous
    October 21, 2004
    I'm not convinced that Outlook 2003 provides the customization level that a typical office worker needs. My biggest beef against Outlook 2003 is the hard restriction on the number of rules that I can create. There continues to be this dumb memory limit that has not changed in any version of Outlook. I can have a 1 GB machine, but I'm hobbled with a stupid 32 KB rules limitation. So much for customization!

  • Anonymous
    October 21, 2004
    Actually, the 32KB rules limitation is an Exchange limitation, not an Outlook limitation. Not that the user cares why they cannot do it. But I believe you can have as many rules as you want if you set them up as client side rules.

  • Anonymous
    October 22, 2004
    Exactly yotaku. The following article may clarify...
    http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;241325&sd=tech

  • Anonymous
    October 22, 2004
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    October 22, 2004
    Well, I guess the point of my comment is that the problem is not an Outlook problem. Outlook is not limited by this when checking other types of accounts (POP, IMAP, etc). This limitation is true of any email client using an Exchange server.

    Now, as to why Exchange made the design decision to limit Rules storage to 32k, I honestly don't know.

  • Anonymous
    October 22, 2004
    Here's my guess: there can be a lot of people using an Exchange server, and having them each have a whole lot of rules to sort through could create a performance problem. That's why a lot of Notes shops turn off agents -- there is no such limitation on them and they can degrade the server's performance.

  • Anonymous
    May 02, 2005
    An Ugly workaround:
    http://blogs.msdn.com/adioltean/archive/2004/11/18/259448.aspx

  • Anonymous
    September 06, 2005
    What Microsoft is failing at is the simple solution!

    Why not have a client side only option? One that does not do anything to the server? Also why does Outlook 98 and Outlook 2000 work with so many rules but not Outlook 2003? This seems to state something else is going on rather than just Exchange only? Maybe how 2003 stores the rules? using up more space per byte, etc?

    32k is silly trully, but understandable if done on a large scale via the server...they just need to look at the options outside of the server to fix this! Cause it is a serious flaw in my opinion!

  • Anonymous
    May 12, 2006
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    September 30, 2007
    Google's system works based on it's simply design combined with amazing algoryhms that works fine. yahoo may have gon astray with their attempts to become like aol. TIME WILL TELL. Sue

  • Anonymous
    June 13, 2009
    PingBack from http://firepitidea.info/story.php?id=725