Mac Forum / Applications / Other MS Products / December 2005

Bill,

Entourage still isn't an equivalent counterpart to the Windows Outlook
client.

We have tested Entourage at our business which has over 100 Macs, and
even compared to Outlook 2001 running in classic mode, it is not an
upgrade,
but a downgrade.

Enoturage is slow, and acts like a POP mail client, not like an
Exchange only
client which Outlook 2001 was. It hogs local resources, and has to
locally download
every email, which is silly in a workplace with an Exchange 2003
server.

It also lacks some features that Outlook 2001 had which we use daily.
All we
(and most larger companies) would want would be to make Outlook for OS
X,
which doesn't have all the 'consumer' bells and whistles, and is a true
exchange-only
client.

I can understand why it isn't in Microsoft's interest to create an
exchange client
for Macs, who probably won't be purchasing many Microsoft products or
running
Windows. The more painful it is to be a Mac user in a Windows office,
the easier it
is to give up and just go Windows across the board.

Possible drawbacks to the Entourage 2004 solution might include the
following:

Entourage 2004 provides a solution for e-mail, group calendaring,
scheduling, Global Address  Book, and delegation only. Certain
advanced Exchange features, such as voting, shared tasks,  shared
notes, and server-side rules, are not accessible.

Entourage 2004 does not provide full public folder or delegation
support.

Although rules stored on Exchange Server will run, Exchange
Server-based rules cannot be created or  changed by using Entourage.
To change a server-based rule from the Macintosh computer, users must
use Microsoft Outlook.

Entourage does not detect whether an invitation is out of date or
conflicts with other events.

Entourage does not support invitation counterproposals in Outlook.

Entourage does not perform out-of-office responses in the same way
that Outlook does. To configure  an out-of-office response in
Entourage, a user must create a rule.

Entourage 2004 has the following limitations for public folders:
--Only e-mail messages appear in Entourage. Other item types that
might be in the public  folder - such as Calendar events, contacts,
or
tasks - do not appear in Entourage.
--To have Entourage automatically download the messages in a specific
public folder, a user  must subscribe to that folder.
--Public folders cannot be created, dragged, moved, renamed, or
deleted by using Microsoft  Entourage.
--Downloading the public folder list from the Exchange server can be
very slow if there are  many folders.
--Entourage does not save the list of public folders. The list is
downloaded every time the user  selects the top-level public folders
container. To avoid downloading the folder list frequently,  users
can
subscribe to their favorite public folders in Entourage. Subscribed
folders in  Entourage are not added to the Outlook public folders
Favorites list, nor are folders in the  Outlook public folders
Favorites list added to subscribed folders in Entourage.
--Users cannot post directly to a public folder. To post a message,
the public folder must have  an e-mail address, and the user must
have
the correct access privileges. Users can also drag  existing messages

to a public folder, depending on a user's privileges.

Users cannot browse Global Address List
To search for an e-mail address by using the Directory Services tool

1.  On the Tools menu, click Directory Services.
2.  In the Server List, click the directory service you want to
search.
3.  In the Search for name box, type the name of the person whose
e-mail address you want to  find.
4.  Click Find.  
5.  In the list of search results, double-click an entry to view more

information.

And a recap:
Differences between Entourage 2004 and Outlook for Mac
The following list of the notable differences between Entourage 2004
and Outlook will help you plan  Entourage 2004 deployment and
diagnose
Entourage issues:
·  Entourage uses the WebDAV protocol to communicate with the
Exchange
server and manage  mail, Calendar, and contacts. Outlook uses a
MAPI-based architecture to communicate with  the Exchange server.
·  Entourage provides no offline access to the Global Address List.

Offline, recently used  addresses obtained from the Global Address
List will appear in the most recently used list  provided in the To
field of an Entourage message.
·  Users cannot browse the Global Address List in Entourage (that
is,
scroll the Global Address  List from A to Z).
·  Entourage does not support multiple Calendar or Contacts
folders.
This applies to Delegation  and public folders as well as to the main

account.
·  Entourage does not support setting permissions.
·  Entourage does not support disabling the Entourage user
interface
based on permissions.
·  Entourage does not support mapping from subscribed public
folders
in Entourage to public  folder favorites in Outlook.
·  Entourage does not support Outlook forms, voting buttons, RTF
message formatting, or  receipt tracking.
·  Entourage does not support server-side rules (including
out-of-office messages). Entourage  users connecting to an Exchange
2003 server can use Outlook Web Access for out-of-office  messages.
·  Entourage does not support password expiration notification or
the
ability to change the user  account password.
·  Entourage does not support quota management.  
·  Entourage does not support synchronizing Tasks or Notes to
Exchange
servers.