I know this may be old news now but with Christmas being upon us many companies, ourselves included like to send a fun greeting to the people they have been working with over the past year. Many have chosen to go down the ‘eco friendly’ route of sending out an email greeting, animated Santa’s, Christmas tunes, throw-able snowmen and so on. Using our HTML wizardry we have increasingly been able to send these rich media greetings directly to your inbox which was fast becoming as capable as a web browser such as Internet Explorer (or Firefox for the more discerning web user) for displaying sounds, animations and even video content until the release of Microsoft’s Outlook 2007.

In this latest version of the favoured email client of the business world Microsoft decided to replace the HTML rendering engine with that used in its Word application!? But isn’t Microsoft Word a desktop publishing package with a terrible HTML export option bolted on to it I hear you cry? Well yes; this means that you cannot display rich-media content such as Flash, audio, video or even the humble animated gif in any email within this new incarnation of the Outlook Software.

I know Microsoft have never been one for conforming to standards where web content is involved but for myself and other rich media content creators this appears to be a huge step backwards, begging the question why? The official reason seems to be consistency for its users between its product suite but surely this kind of ‘Nanny-ing’ won’t only frustrate developers but ultimately put off customers by seeming to vet the content that is available to them and ultimately inhibit user experience. Frustrating, but for now Microsoft know they have the lions share so we, as content developers have to conform to allow our customers to reach their audience.

(Opinion by: Simon Farrow – Web Development Manager)