You"d think that by now Microsoft Outlook would be a pretty complete product. And it generally is, except that it doesn"t do a number of things that it really ought to. Like these dozen features that are on my list for the next release of Bill"s Chosen E-Mail Client. I wonder how my list matches up against yours:
1. Address correction and validation:The United States Postal Service likes to see addresses presented in certain ways, with specific abbreviations and nine-digit ZIP codes. Why doesn"t Outlook automatically validate the addresses in my contact list, fix nonstandard abbreviations, and add ZIP codes and the extra four digits as needed?
2. Address verification: I am not sure why companies like Plaxo even exist when Outlook ought to be capable of periodically asking people on your contact list to verify their information and processing the responses. Outlook could process these messages automatically, just asking the user whether or not they want to respond to a particular request. Everyone in your contact list could also receive automatic responses handled in the background, if the user desired. Until these features are added I"m using the GoodContacts service.