Mac Mojo: The Office for Mac Team Blog

Last week, the Entourage team hit a big milestone: we made our very first widespread beta available to support Exchange Web Services. In this first week of our beta, we've had thousands of users sign up, and we're getting great feedback about it. (For more details about the beta, including the requirements for using it and how to sign up for it, read this post.)

I've been closely following the feedback that we've been getting about Entourage EWS. Not all of the feedback about EWS comes to us through the beta website. Twitter has been a great source of feedback. Check out these quotes:

The issues and suggestions that are being logged through the beta program are tremendously useful to us. Please keep on using the beta and keep your suggestions coming! We're keeping a close eye on all of the feedback, both through the beta website and other forums. Entourage EWS represents a lot of back-end work for us, and we're really excited about what we've delivered so far and about making it even better going forward.

Posted by: Nadyne Richmond in Entourage, Entourage

13 Comments

Comments | Who's Blogging This

[ewelch]

ewelch

Feb 02, 2009

10:46am

Too bad

It's great news that Entourage is growing up - finally. It's really too bad that the education version of Office doesn't support Exchange. My school has an exchange server. We use Entrouage. But if we buy the school/home version, we don't get Exchange support.

How does that make sense? Is there an education price on the full version of office? If it costs more, fine. But why remove such a fundamentally important piece of software?

I guess I'll be using Mail.app to access Exchange when Snow Leopard arrives, eh?

[Nøklebye, Geir]

Geir Nøklebye

Feb 25, 2009

10:15pm

Backward compatibility for connection method

One question about backward compatibility? When installing the beta, the old connection method disappeared and to reconnect with the old setup (as is currently required by my default server) I had to remove and reinstall Office 2008.

Can you confirm that the new connection method comes in ADDITION to the current method, so that an upgrade of Entourage suddenly don't leave users who rely on the current method stranded. Anything else will be unacceptable.

Thanks,

Nadyne Richmond

Feb 25, 2009

10:18pm

Microsoft reply to Geir N�klebye

For the beta, the new connection method (via Exchange Web Services) completely replaces the old connection method (via WebDAV). As we specify when applying for the beta, your Exchange server must be Exchange 2007 SP1 RU4 or later. If you try to run the beta against Exchange 2003 or earlier, the beta will not work. In that case, you should continue to use Entourage 2008.

[davey64]

davey64

Feb 25, 2009

10:15pm

What else does the EWS install?

I noticed during the EWS install updates to other applications in the Office suite and was wondering what additionally was getting installed.
That question aside, I am loving the finally being on equal footing with my Windows brethren, well we're getting there. A big thanks to the MacBU!

Nadyne Richmond

Mar 03, 2009

9:39am

Microsoft reply to davey64

Nothing else is installed during the installation of Entourage EWS. The beta installer doesn't do a great job of cleaning up empty folders after itself, which looks like we're updating the app bundles (even though there's no files in those empty folders).

[edoug]

edoug

Feb 25, 2009

10:15pm

Beta program full?

I signed up for the Beta, read there was a 24-48 hour period before a response; and now, many multiples of time later, I still haven't heard anything.

If it's full, cool. Let me know.
If it's not, great! Let me know.

Please?

Nadyne Richmond

Feb 25, 2009

10:19pm

Microsoft reply to edoug

Check your spam folder to make sure that the response didn't end up there. (Also, remember that the 24-48 hours is 2 working days, we try to take weekends off occasionally!) You can also login to the Connect website and check your dashboard there to see the status of joining the beta.

Nadyne Richmond

Feb 02, 2009

10:53am

Microsoft reply to ewelch

The Home and Student edition is intended for home use, for users who don't need to access Exchange servers. Check with your school to see if you can get either the Standard Edition or Special Media Edition of Office 2008 through them.

Actually, all university students and faculty should check with their school to see if they can get Microsoft products at a reduced rate through them, regardless of whether their school uses Exchange. Many schools make lots of Microsoft software products available at very student-friendly reduced rates.

[cook1378]

cook1378

Feb 03, 2009

12:38pm

Trouble with EWS

I am having trouble with EWS. I can get it to connect to our Exchange server but it will not display any folders. Can some point me to someone who could help me with my issue? I am not sure if this is the correct place for this post.

Thanks,

Cook1378

[Tedesco, Mike]

Mike Tedesco

Feb 03, 2009

1:00pm

Microsoft reply to cook1378

Hi Cook -

All support for the beta is running through the Connect site. Please return to connect.microsoft.com and login with your account. Then click on the Entourage for Exchange Web Services beta, and on the left you'll see a Feedback form. Please fill that out and submit with as much detail as you have and our support/development teams will take a look and get back to you.

Thanks,

Mike

[StefanM]

StefanM

Feb 05, 2009

10:10am

Beta only in English

Would be absolutely great if there would be a beta version for german office versions.

Could you please do this.... I cannot wait to get this great features for my entourage.
I am missing these for long

It is the last missing thing

[Tedesco, Mike]

Mike Tedesco

Feb 05, 2009

10:11am

Microsoft reply to StefanM

Hi Stefan -

I apologize for any inconvenience, but we will not be releasing the localized versions until we release the final product later this year. The entire beta will be in English only.

Thanks,

Mike

[Cayman]

Cayman

Feb 25, 2009

10:15pm

At last

It is good to finally see MS come to their senses and make Entourage functionaly similar to Outlook. We had so many problems with Webdav that my IT dept REFUSED to deal with Entourage! Thank you. Now I can go and try and persuade them to be more flexible.