We’re sad to report that as of the most recent beta build of Office 2008 (070919), that Entourage is still the same sad, anemic application that it is in the current 2004 version.

In fact, it would appear that from an Exchange perspective, the only change would appear to be the addition of an Out of Office assistant that saves Exchange users from having to login to Outlook Web Access or use a desktop Outlook version.

Exchange compatibility in a business environment is something that many people have hoped would be more heavily focused upon in the long awaited update to Microsoft’s de facto office software. Too bad.

Of particularly disappointing interest:

Still uses OWA for Exchange connection
No password change functionality
No GAL support in address books
No task synching
No note synching
No category synching
No multi-view calendars (side by side, etc.)
No visible AD integration (pass-through authentication for instance)

The good news is that a great deal of attention has been given to the splash screen and mismatched toolbar icons.

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