Existing users, 
First, the worst bugs:
1. Entourage unpredictaly loses it's ability to receive even the simplest keyboard commands. The menu may flash momentarily, but nothing happens. One can only operate then by actually using the menu. At the same time, its responsiveness to the page up and page down keys also is lost. The "workaround" is to re-start the program, which then works correctly again - for a while - and then requires another restart. Ouch!
2. It crashes. A lot. Each crash generates a bug report to be sent to Microsoft, but there's no feedback from MS, so one doesn't even know if anyone reads the reports or whether anyone is working on a fix. Compressing the database seems to fix it for a while, but then it starts doing it again after a few days.Arghhh!
3. MS has added an infuriating "feature" and introduced an infuriating bug along with it: The feature is to no longer display HTML without my having to click on the "To protect your privacy, some pictures in this message were not downloaded. Download Pictures." button. Well, MS, it's nice you're concerned with my privacy, but how about giving me a choice? The only workaround to this newly introduced stumbling block is to put each individual sender in my already bloated address book, after which Entourage will assume I want to see the next message from that sender as sent, rather than Microsoft's version (this appears to be undocumented; you have to talk to a MS Support Supervisor to find it). Either way it takes way too much time to deal with. Where's the choice, MS? Last I looked, I was past 21 and supposedly capable of making my own choices about censorship. I called MS Support (more on this below) and finally got a supervisor who told me there were no plans to allow us any global choice. Sigh
4. Worse, once Entourage has downloaded some HTML with (I presurme) some code in it the program doesn't chew well, one can no longer open an Account or create a new Account. The same manager mentioned in item 3, above, said that MS was "aware of this issue," but that it wasn't "yet identified as a bug," then later phoned me back (a first in Microsoft history? !!) to proudly announce they had just escalated the "issue" and called it a bug, but hadn't published that info yet. Note this was several months ago. I guess they're short of money to make corrections to a really irritating bug. The only workaround appears to be to Quit and then restart Entourage. Sighhhhhhhh!
Which brings us to phone support:
5. MS, in its never ending quest to put more money in the shareholders' (especially a shareholder named Gates) pockets has brilliantly followed the stampede to India. Now mind you, this isn't a rant against foreigners in general, Indians in particular, nor even concern about what effect it has on our balance of trade and our employment/unemployment in the U.S. I leave the first to xenophobes, the second to people who hate people different from themselves, and the latter to the economists and politicians, all of whom are more than adequately available to put in their own spin (and willingly do so). What I hate about support calls to India is that the phone connection (and volume) is often lousy to downright maddening, the Indian-English accent is often difficult to my ear, accustomed as it is to our wierd Western twangs, slang, vocabulary and sentence structure, intonation and syllabic accent, etc., and - most of all - that the poor Indians staffing those lines have virtually nothing they are trusted and permitted to do to veer from the canned responses they are required to make: the official MS position. I frankly doubt seriously they can even see the real program in operation on a computer; instead, they seem to work from previously prepared, "canned" responses. This suggests MS either doesn't trust their own people for good reasons (such as they're not equipped for the job by MS via adequate training, which might then empower them to make diagnoses and judgments outside of the predominant, officially known issues and solutions), or - worse in social implication - that MS has substantial lack of respect and trust for its non-American workers).
If you can't understand the particular agent fate handed you, asking for another person or for a supervisor is difficult to impossible; you must hang up and start all over again (and it's not a simple process). You can demand to speak to a North American-based agent (who then may, if you request it, transfer you to a supervisor (or supervisor will call back in their own good time), but it takes persistence and enormous patienc, self-restraint, and a whole bunch of time to burn.
Of course, MS could train its staff in India so adequately they really understand and themselves are expert at using the software, so that the typical support call would be brief, on target, and useful, but then they'd have to pay people better and spend a lot more on training, and it's probably easier and far cheaper (but only in the short run, of course) to let most customers just get fatigued and give up.
Hey, Microsoft! Pay attention. Your software isn't running well and you're collective head is officially, if not in fact, in the sand.
P.S. I'm recommending Entourage 2004, but only because with all it's bugs and warts it's still worth using if your needs are complex. But try finding a simple way to add a sender to an email group; or try searching "quickly" for a company name (not indexed) in a 7,000 name address book (email addresses, first and last names and nicknames are indexed - those are just two examples of some fist-sized warts.
P.P.S. I waited three or four months to post this, after conveying these concerns to MS, hoping they'd address most or all of them. No luck. Anybody home, Redmond? Bill, are you there? Hello? Hellooooooo?
Don Levy
The Mac Therapist
Los Angeles
