[Macworld]

Post your comments for Expo: Microsoft to enhance Entourage Exchange, SharePoint on the Mac here

[zimzima69]

while you're there, tell them to 'enhance' Live Meeting so it doesn't suck on we can atleast use HOST from the MAC. Also tell them to 'enhance' their websites for Mac Safari/Firefox users.

[cbh]

This would have been somewhat interesting to me had I not jumped ship to the Mail/Ical/Address Book package over the holidays after having used Entourage from its beginnings. I don't need the exchange feature, and found the simplicity and speed of Mail, the lack of a single database file, and the ability to use BusySync with my laptop, were more than enough good reasons to switch.

[chrisrodney]

Now if I could only take the PST file from my Windows Outlook and open it in Entourage without third party software or hours of conversion time, that would be great!
Seems pretty basic, really...

[Ronald_Schoedel]

So does this mean we finally get TASKS in Entourage????? Oh, PLEASE LET IT BE!

[leicaman]

Well, I have to say I'm quite happy they are doing this. I sure hope we have the money to update Entourage soon! Otherwise, we'll have to upgrade to Snow Leopard and use Mail/iCal, etc.

[midlantica]

I am using Entourage at my office in which my Mac is a minority of one and using MS Entourage Mail app. Recently they've decided to up their MS Server to Exchange... so now Entourage doesn't work. Apparently I have the 'Home & Student Edition' which doesn't have the Exchange capability, for another $300+ I can upgrade my Entourage to the 'Pro' version to use MS's Exchange on my Mac... However... it appears I could have used Apple's Mail which seems to work fine but MS Entourage is just broken. Nice one MS... Grrr

[dbutenhof]

Why can't the just FIX SharePoint so it doesn't suck entirely, and can work with real web browsers, instead of hacking some custom limited interface to avoid addressing the real problem? Sheesh. Yeah, sure; macbu can't fix SharePoint, and certainly can't tell Mac users to use recent Internet Explorer, so they hacked what they could. Still stupid.

[bonesb]

I want in on the private beta for Document Collaboration Companion. I hope that they're not limiting it to Mac users in Exchange environments and that the beta period doesn't drag on and on...

[greenalien]

@midlantica Join the club. I felt completely screwed over by Microsoft over this. In my case it really was for home use. I signed up to a hosted Exchange provider after being disappointed with Mobile Me. It cost a similar amount and has a similar feature set for my needs (sync mail, contacts and calendar between computer and iPhone).
The provider includes a license for both Outlook and Entourage. I started out with Outlook and apart from hating Outlook's UI it worked fine. Then I switched to Mac and Entourage worked fine also. I prefer the cleaner UI (less clicks to do common tasks) though mail is slightly delayed by a few seconds compared with outlook and iPhone. But overall I was happy.
Then I purchased Office 2008 Home & Student. Big mistake. Without warning at any stage it actively disabled the Exchange account in Entourage. I had to uninstall Office then reinstall Entourage with the original license key. Thankfully all the mail and settings remained intact.
Microsoft's support over this issue was completely useless in every possible way. And from what I've seen read of others caught out by this, their support staff have no consideration or empathy over it whatsoever.
Nevertheless. This update, being free, is very welcome. Given Microsoft have spilled that they're well into the next version of Office for Mac this was a nice surprise. I just hope it arrives before I get tempted to upgrade to Snow Leopard where I'll probably ditch Entourage for the built-in Exchange support.

[montgomery_burns]

When they talk about performance, will Entourage users still have to wait for long sync times as everything has to get copied to the Mac hard drive? Or can Entourage finally work in online only mode where everything is stored on the server?

[PeterNorman]

Did the author of the article find out if the patch to Entourage will support full Exchange Task sync?
I would like Entourage to be functionally the same as Outlook 2007 - with respect to its Exchange calendar, mail, tasks and notes sync functionality. Its been a long time since Outlook 2001 for Mac was a practical solution.
Its too bad that Exchange 2007 will be required. So many Hosted Exchange services are 2003-based - mine certainly is.

[SJTryon]

How nice that one of their Macintosh desktop products is (reportedly) going to actually work with one of their server-based products.
Am I supposed to get wildly happy about this?
It hasn't happened yet (ie: SharePoint and ANY Macintosh web browser) so I'm not holding my breath for this.

[zimzima69]

blogs.msdn.com/nadyne/archive/2009/01/07/the-macbu-beta-trifecta-entourage-exchange-web-services-messenger-and-document-collaboration-companion.aspx



Exchange task is coming!