Microsoft 'surprised' by Google Gmail 'winter cleaning'
Microsoft has shot back at Google’s termination of Exchange syncing for free Gmail accounts, and urged users to throw out Gmail for Outlook.com. Google last week said it's closing Google Sync, a service that allowed users of Microsoft’s Exchange ActiveSync protocol to access their Gmail, calendars, and contacts via the Microsoft …
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imap parts
What, you never send attachments?
I bet you're talking about pop, not imap. imap4 does have a body multipart handling feature in which attachments do not get downloaded when you read the text body of the email. You just sent a big attachment a you'd like to re-download it? If you want syn local with server and vice versa, pop is what you really want.
badmonkye , imap or pop?
Have you been misspelling "pop" as "imap" all these irritating years?
I don't see what the fuss is about
I only have email accounts so that I can spend some time in the afternoon deleting the 150 plus emails for goods and services I no longer use.
At least google only throw out features, MS threw out my accounts!
I'd never go back to using any MS online account. We created a Live account some time back for work as it was required to use their online tools to track licenses. Imagine our pleasure when we tried to login the next year to renew the licenses when we found they had removed the account due to inactivity.
Yes, we didn't use it, but they were enforcing this as the tool to use for license management, that's not exactly something you need to do regularly.
There was no notification of their plans, and no way to recover the licensing details. We quickly scrapped their "recommended" approach and reverted to our existing manual system.
Re: At least google only throw out features, MS threw out my accounts!
So presumably you don't use Gmail either, since their policy is to terminate accounts after 9 months of inactivity?
https://mail.google.com/mail/help/intl/en/program_policies.html
Re: At least google only throw out features, MS threw out my accounts!
Next time read the terms and conditions, one of which is the need to log in at least once every so often. If you can't even read, let alone factor in one simple task into your tracking licence scheme, then you really should step away and leave it to someone more competant.
Re: At least google only throw out features, MS threw out my accounts!
If I found someone checking annual licenses on a daily basis I'd probably fire them.
And if you read the terms and conditions you'll not be doing any work either.
I'm not arsed
I've got both a gmail and a hotmail account.
Re: I'm not arsed
And they both support forwarding, so you can use whichever one you prefer.
Re: Thank goodness for POP
Who needs server sync'ed and backed up email eh?
Re: Thank goodness for POP
Email is one of the most important functions of the intertubes. And yet it's really hard to get it working properly as an end-user. Once you get beyond signing up to your ISP's service or getting a Hotmail/GMail account there are very few people who can work out how to get it going without help. As I can attest. I'm not an IT pro (I can't speak fluent geek, but I can get by enough to order a meal or book a hotel...), but I've had to set up email for a lot of friends who can't get their heads round the difference between POP and IMAP for example.
Where the hell are the decent offline mail clients? Why is everything so damned incompatible? Why's it so hard? Aargh!
Re: "can't get their heads round"
If only more clients used autoconfig.
I must be the odd one
Who never had a problem with IMAP because doesn't use... Outlook.
Re: I must be the odd one
You are absolutely right! IMAP support in Outlook is really bad, but then it was was never built for it.
Shills Out In Full Force
So Google terminates free usage of a M$ protocol they have to pay royalties for ? How sad, sad.
More seriously, get a fucking grip !
If all things went according to M$ and their shills, we all would be 100% locked into a undocumented, binary protocol that only three developers in Redmond understand entirely. We would pay for each and every email message like we pay for traditional mail. M$ "decency" standards would be imposed on the content. It would be insecure as hell on 125 levels.
So, let's better use IMAP, POP3, SMTP, TLS which are all shitty in some way, but at least they don't lock us into the "business decisions" of clinically mad billionaires.
But thanks, always nice to see the propaganda apparatus at work.
Re: Shills Out In Full Force
Mate,
with comments like:
"If all things went according to M$ and their shills, we all would be 100% locked into a undocumented, binary protocol that only three developers in Redmond understand entirely"
Your credibility is sky high. Seriously.
Re: Shills Out In Full Force
"Your credibility is sky high. Seriously."
I can think of a few examples of MS not documenting/embracing+extending/hiding their protocols in their history. Some of them they were forced to document by a court, no less.
... perhaps what happens is that OP that more years of experience than you?
Re: Shills Out In Full Force
@Frank - Like the house rules say: Just because someone doesn't share your opinion, it doesn't make them a shill, don't accuse them of being so.
The problem is that Google have been offering a service for free and are now withdrawing it in preference of a pay-for service and they have form here. I find it staggering that people such as yourself are so willfully myopic that they can't see this as a problem and are still saying that MS are the bad guys in the situation.
As has been mentioned earlier IMAP, POP3, SMTP etc don't move calendar and contacts, a key requirement for most people, activesync does.
Re: Shills Out In Full Force
Nor do they sync MP3s, pictures or documents. And my Linux PC and Android phone somehow manage to sync the address books and calendars ... so what's your point again?
Almost all email
Assumes there are no hackers.
Also I don't wish to have my emails only stored on someone else's server, Microsoft's, Apple's, Yahoo's or Google's.
Email generally is important because so many people use it, and where is the open source WIDELY USED secure (no source spoofing / free spam not just "intercept secuirity) and reliable alternative to Notes, Exchange, IMAP, POP3 and SMTP eh?
Sorry, it sure isn't Twitter or Facebook.
Calender and Contact
Microsoft gave the computing world a kick where it hurt most with Outlook/Exchange and not having the non-mail stuff separate. Not rocket science to write an application that uses a separate messaging package. The whole aim of SW development and easy to use end user applications should be to do SMALLER communicating applications.
In win3.1 I installed a Spelling Checker and it worked for almost everything. On current systems EACH program seems to have it's own checker (often worse than programs 15 years ago). Rubbish and poorly published APIs?
As far as I know, ActiveSync comes with a hefty license fee.
So?
If they didn't have any intention of making the service work for free, they shouldn't have offered it for free.
Basic question
Where is native Microsoft (not third party) outlook client which adheres to Android standards?
Why?
I don't really know what Google hope to achieve with this, I only use it to sync my works outlook calendar with my Google one so I can see it on my phone, without sync, Google calendar becomes pointless for me. I can't choose not to use Outlook. Is there another way to sync an outlook calendar with a Google calendar.
Anonymous since my usage of Google Calendar Sync probably violates dozens of IT policies.
Re: Why?
You can use android-sync (www.android-sync.com) to create local contacts and calendars on your Android phone and sync your outlook data over USB. That's how I carry my work calendar and contacts on my Android phone. The local contacts and calender are not synchronised with the Google cloud so Google thinks I am Billy-no-mates and I spend my days in bed never meeting anyone.
Re: Why?
....but that would require me to actually do something, with the current set up it all just happens on it's own, so not worth the effort, one less use for my android phone, at least I can switch sync off now, save some battery and bandwidth - to be honest calendar syncing is about the most useful thing my phone does -
and I don't understand how this costs Google anything, the sync tool runs on my (works) PC, extracts data from an Outlook calendar (using COM I assume) and then sends it to my google claendar using their standard protocols, where does MS even see any of this to 'charge' them fopr anything !!!. If that's not how it does it how does it manage to connect to a closed corporate Outlook server without requiring any permission, even Outlook asks for login details on occasion !!
Re: Why?
I'm not even going to attempt to to make sense of how you've tried to explain calender syncing there, but it doesn't sound remotely correct to me.
As far getting your work calender on your phone. Why are you trying to copy the content of your work calender to your google calender? Why not simply access and sync your work calender directly on your phone? Android supports ActiveSync (and from I gather you're using Exchange at work), so simply add your work email account to your phone and sync your calender to your phone directly.
Am I missing something here?
gmail / outlook?
No thanks, I'll avoid both thanks neither are remotely worth using though gmails web interface is by far the worse.
You know, for better (or worse depending on your zeal) this is probably a good thing for pushing Exchange out of the enterprise. If Google is going to focus on IMAP, calDAV, and cardDAV will probably see wider ranges and better implantation of these protocols.
No surprise...
Google have to pay MS a licence fee for each user they have that uses activesync, which is a colossal waste of money for a free service...
Standard protocols like Caldav, Carddav, IMAP etc can be used for free...
Everyone else has good support for standard protocols, even Apple, it's only MS that refuses to implement them and try to keep you locked in.
Instead of complaining about google no longer willing to license a proprietary protocol and let you use it for free, how about complaining about MS for not bothering to support openly documented royalty free standards.
Re: No surprise...
"Instead of complaining about google no longer willing to license a proprietary protocol and let you use it for free, how about complaining about MS for not bothering to support openly documented royalty free standards."
yeah sure, because MS
a. really care about that
b couldn't give a shit
Thankfully it takes about 2 minutes to change the MX servers for my domain and if I do it at 1am, I probably won't notice anything at all except the reconfiguring of a few clients.?
I thought Google got paid via advertising? Why are they making me now pay for ActiveSync? They'd better get their grubby mits off my Inbox if they want to keep that shit up.
Wow
Microsoft this year re-branded its existing Hotmail service as Outlook.com.
It says something about the perceived quality of your mail system when applying the Outlook brand is considered an improvement.
wait..
Don't you have to pay a license fee to use ActiveSync?
If so, I can see why Microsoft would be so strident, and why Google might want rid.
Exchange ActiveSync is rubbish
"A good reason that Google might want to consider paying Microsoft actual money to use Exchange Active Sync is that their users want them to."
If users want it they can pay for it. You can't really fault Google for not wanting to provide a servcei -- for free -- that they then have to pay Microsoft to use (and get nothing for it.)
" Also, it works. Whereas Google's implementation of IMAP doesn't (at least not properly or consistently). Also iOS uses the same protocol to connect to GMail doesn't it?"
Exchange ActiveSync protocol... well, I won't comment on functionality. But as a protocol, it sounds absolutely horrible. First, to clarify, ActiveSync is/was used to sync via USB or serial between a (Windows) PC and local (Windows) phone, and Exchange Activesync is using the Microsoft technique of placing a similar name on a completely unrelated protocol. It was a horrible design. The new protocol, if you can call it that, is XML-based but other than that, appears to just be defined as whatever Exchange feels like putting over the wire as opposed to having any proper definition -- and they just keep adding extra complexities with every release. Even when companies license it, they just get a patent license, no protocol documentation (because I think there isn't any.)
So, you expect Google to pay Microsoft in order to increase compatibility with Microsoft products, while every other product on the market supports industry standards? Sorry but Microsoft can piss off.
activesync licensing
I read all comments, and I just wonder: if EAS icensing cost is an issue, why does every Android phone sold support EAS (poorly though) ? I'm just curious, isn't this a license fee per device sold ? And does Google foot the bill or the OEM (e.g. Samsung) ? I'm pretty sure Apple pays fees to MS for EAS support. Based on this, will EAS support be in the next Android version or not ? I assume it will be, since they would lose millions of customers overnight if it wasn't.
"an older protocol"
LULZ!!! EPIC LULZ I say!!! MS has a sense of humor, trolling like that.
Meanwhile loving dovecot and postfix.
Exchange? What's that?
Getting rid of exchange and its ecosystem was the best decision for us: too expensive, too complicated, too closed approach, too many compatibility issues, too many failures... switching to Google Apps one year ago was the best decision for a SME like ours with limited resources for IT. For a cost a fraction of the previous cost, now all of our users have access to a lot of services whose usage boosts our productivity through the GUI they want: outlook, thunderbird (+plugins), their favorite browser. The openness of Google APIs is a plus for customization. Also, as a side effect, this move enabled also to get rid of our Blackberry fleet and the associated BES server, and let users choose either IOs or Android devices.
Glad I escaped
Blech, had to use Exchange/Outlook years ago at a previous job. Exchange seemed to go down for hours at a time every month and people (luckily not me) were having problems with corrupted and sometimes deleted inboxes. Plus crap spam management. Outlook might as well double as a hard drive stress test and/or a laptop battery rundown test. Plus, what am I supposed to do with a bunch of proprietary PST files?
I count my blessings with Google... lots of storage space, responsive, great spam filtering/management, great IMAP support... never had a problem getting it working with Thunderbird. Although now that Thunderbird has kind of turned to crap I use Apple's standard Mail app which is surprisingly good.
Google are just out to piss everyone off this month, removing Exchange access, removing the ability to download from YouTube, next they'll be cancelling Christmas :/
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