Microsoft prove they're listening - Blog

Microsoft prove they’re listening

August 21, 2009

You might remember a couple of weeks back I received a fantastic letter from the Office team confirming they'd received the Fix Outlook mosaic and had even hung it on their wall. Today they took their message of "we're listening" a step further by sending me photographic proof that they're doing just that.

The first shot features William Kennedy, VP of Office and Jeanne Sheldon, VP of Word (nice shirt Jeanne) hanging out next to the mosaic's new home in the Office team's hallway.

This second photo was taken at the entrance to the Microsoft campus and includes a number of Word and Outlook team members who have worked on HTML rendering in Office over the years.

I've got to give Microsoft an enormous amount of credit for this. They could have ignored our feedback completely, but instead proved they are genuinely listening to our feedback and are prepared to have a bit of fun doing it. Add to this the recent launch of MakeOfficeBetter.com by two Microsoft employees, and it becomes clear that these guys really do care about giving their customers the best experience possible.

While there is still no confirmation about what impact this will have on the rendering in Outlook, this is a big step for the Office team to take publicly. William and the rest of the Office team have assured me they will keep in touch as they plan their next release. You guys will be the first to hear if we have any news to share. In the mean time, let's keep the feedback going by adding your vote for better HTML support.

Bravo Microsoft.

Posted in: Observations & Answers

14 Comments

Dave Calleja
August 21, 2009 10:45am

I believe the correct term is ‘props’ =) Nice work CM!
David Greiner
August 21, 2009 11:08am

Good call Dave, that or ‘kudos’. Either way, a big thumbs up.
Damien Buckley
August 21, 2009 11:21am

Excellent response - hopefully will go a long way to not only getting the software sorted but certainly won’t hurt MS in the P.R. dept. either. Good on them.
Carson McComas
August 21, 2009 2:49pm

And nice work yourself there Dave in taking a respectful, but noticeable approach with them, which is very likely to work (even if not as quickly as we’d like).
George
August 21, 2009 3:34pm

“They could have ignored our feedback completely, but instead proved they are genuinely listening to our feedback and are prepared to have a bit of fun doing it.”

Or they’re just having a laugh.
Dean
August 21, 2009 4:12pm

I’m with George on this - MS should either do something or make some solid commitment to do something rather than take photographs.
Mathew Patterson
August 21, 2009 6:23pm

While it is true that we have not had any concrete changes yet, cynical dismissal of Microsoft’s response is not getting us any closer to a result.

Before this campaign, Microsoft had barely acknowledged the HTML rendering issue at all, and now we are a lot further along. Let’s appreciate the positive steps and continue working for more.
Mark Wyner
August 22, 2009 1:59am

Excellent work, folks. While I am completely skeptical that Microsoft has any concerns about web stability and longevity, it’s nice to see you’ve garnered a real response from them. So, cheers!
Alex Volocaru
August 22, 2009 6:09pm

Great work guys… congrats!
gucci
August 23, 2009 4:53am

I don’t understand why all the excitement. Let’s get real and stop being so thankful that MS hung the mosaic on their walls. Let’s get excited when we see results. These photos of MS employees with the mosaic mean almost nothing. We want results, not just pretty pictures
Mike
August 23, 2009 2:10pm

Whilst I admit it’s potentially a step forward, in all honesty you just need to remember: this is Microsoft we’re talking about. They’ve never really cared about making things easier for devs simply because they realise we *have* to work around their laziness, whereas they can just leave it and know we’ll waste money and time hackingly fixing things for them.
AKA Bill Posters
August 26, 2009 3:04am

Looks to me like MS just won the PR battle without actually committing to fixing anything
joel fisher
September 3, 2009 3:58am

Why are they smiling? It’s their fault remember.

Stop smiling and shooting pictures and fix it.
filmy online
September 7, 2009 6:06am

I’m with George on this - MS should either do something or make some solid commitment to do something rather than take photographs.

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