To the administrators of Microsoft Hotmail and the manufacturers of affected Android devices:

On behalf of the many thousands of your loyal customers that are currently unable to productively use their Hotmail accounts via the default email app on their Android devices, I am pleading with you to work together to resolve this issue, which appears to have been ongoing now for a number of months.

We have all purchased these devices or signed up for long term plans in good faith and with the understanding that they will provide fully functioning and operational convenience and productivity tools as promoted. If these tools fail due to a lack of communication between vendors (i.e. Microsoft and Android device manufacturers) we are all left at your mercy - At least until the groundswell of absolute frustration forces one of your customers to approach the news media, or some other public forum, to air their grievances.

I do not know who is at fault here, Microsoft for making changes to their Hotmail environment with no apparent notification to device vendors, or the device vendors for not implementing the EAS standard correctly? Quite frankly, I don’t care. I simply want you all to shake hands, agree there is an issue which is affecting a very large number of your customers and get to work on fixing it quickly!

For the record, the recurring suggestion to use the “Official Hotmail” app is simply not acceptable. Whether Microsoft likes it or not, the default email apps provided by most Android device manufacturers tend to provide much better functionality and have a much better user interface. At best, I would accept the suggestion to use the Hotmail app as a very temporary workaround until such time as the real issue is resolved.

As I can’t think of a way to send an open email to both responsible parties, I have resorted to addressing both Microsoft and the Android device vendors in this forum. Be advised that I have already sent a similar email to HTC (The manufacturer of my Android phone, a HTC One XL) and I will also send a copy of this text to the Asia/Pacific Public Relations email address of HTC.

I will also search through all the Questions in the Microsoft Answers forum relating to this issue and direct as many of them as I can to this question.

I look forward to your response and a prompt resolution to this issue for all concerned.

Regards,

Steve.