You might remember a couple of weeks back I received a fantastic letter from the Office team confirming they’d received the Fix Outlook mosaic and had even hung it on their wall. Today they took their message of “we’re listening” a step further by sending me photographic proof that they’re doing just that.

The first shot features William Kennedy, VP of Office and Jeanne Sheldon, VP of Word (nice shirt Jeanne) hanging out next to the mosaic’s new home in the Office team’s hallway.

This second photo was taken at the entrance to the Microsoft campus and includes a number of Word and Outlook team members who have worked on HTML rendering in Office over the years.

I’ve got to give Microsoft an enormous amount of credit for this. They could have ignored our feedback completely, but instead proved they are genuinely listening to our feedback and are prepared to have a bit of fun doing it. Add to this the recent launch of MakeOfficeBetter.com by two Microsoft employees, and it becomes clear that these guys really do care about giving their customers the best experience possible.

While there is still no confirmation about what impact this will have on the rendering in Outlook, this is a big step for the Office team to take publicly. William and the rest of the Office team have assured me they will keep in touch as they plan their next release. You guys will be the first to hear if we have any news to share. In the mean time, let’s keep the feedback going by adding your vote for better HTML support.

Bravo Microsoft.

A couple of weeks back, you might remember that we sent the Office team a final message that included a huge mosaic of everyone who took part in the fixoutlook.org campaign.

We were unsure if we would hear back from the Office team, but were pleasantly surprised today when a large package straight from Redmond arrived on our doorstep. William Kennedy, the Corporate VP of Office was kind enough to send a personal letter to us thanking us for our efforts. William even explained that the Fix Outlook mosaic was now on display in their hallway so the entire Office team can check it out.

William also mentioned that “improvements and changes in this area are something that the team is definitely considering for the future”. Only time will tell if Outlook will move towards better standards support, but this is certainly the strongest message on the subject we’ve had to date.

This is a brilliant result. Here’s the complete letter (emphasis ours).

I can’t thank William enough for not only ensuring our message is seen by the entire team, but for taking the time to let us know how much they appreciated our feedback.