Archive for January, 2007

Rocketseed becomes Salesforce.com Appexchange parter

Rocketseed announcers completion of its integration with Salesforce.com and its membership of the Salesforce Appexchange programme.

Microsoft Takes Email Marketing Back 5 Years

Microsoft has decided to use Word instead of Internet Explorer to render HTML emails in Outlook 2007. And the impact of this is - disaster for many bulkmail newsletter designs and a tough technical year ahead for email marketers.

The change means that many format functions which are currently used in newsletters and emails, will not render correctly in Outlook 2007. This is like saying from this year, you cannot use bold or red in an email. Many e-marketers will have to go back to the drawing board and cut down their creativeness.

Why did they do it? Microsoft say they have made the change to simplify their coding. This could be true, but they certainly are using their monopoly on the market to make life difficult for anyone not using Mircosoft. This shows them to be moving against the tide of technology integration and progress - an obvious move I guess seeing they are behind in email format, but a dangerous longer term game.

It is worth reading the links below if you want more detail. Fortunately Rocketseed picked this issue up over a year ago and hence has ensured its technology is in line with the Microsoft approach.

http://www.campaignmonitor.com/blog/archives/2007/01/the_truth_behind_the_outlook_2.html
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa338201.aspx