A popular solution to a sluggish computer was to restart it. That gives you an empty stack, the one with the best performance. A lot of people, especially home users, did not have a problem with it earlier. It started becoming a problem as the computer started doing more critical things and the frequency of these restarts kept on increasing. This concept has been taken to the next level by a Microsoft tool that wants to improve performance of Outlook by deleting the email. Too much of email creates a performance bottleneck? Just delete it, that will give you the same empty stack that you had with a restart!
I wonder what kind of testing was done on this product? It is one of the cases where you are left thinking whether that was a mistake or a real solution. You keep thinking about the wrong solution so much that you stop thinking about the problem? Why is Outlook sluggish? It is quite possible the problem is hidden under the code or the design or the architecture. And that might take quite some time to pinpoint.
This is important, not only because email is something that is critical to businesses, but also because Microsoft has not been responsive to make sure that its users can workaround this bug. Phil Wainewright wonders if Microsoft is becoming the next IBM. This time though the world is a bit different, people have more options in Thunderbirds, Unixes and Macs. It might be easier for them to migrate to these rather than wait for solutions to such problems.
