There are also some security issues, such as the possibility of compromising corporate firewalls. If this works as described, however, it sounds valuable. I wish I didn't have to, because Outlook doesn't give me any way to turn off HTML, the display language Web pages use, which means that when someone sends me mail coded with HTML I have to view it that way. I'd prefer plain text, period. And I'll bet a lot of other people feel the same way, or would if they understood the issues.
Convenience is the first reason.
I don't like downloading HTML messages when I'm getting my mail, as I do when traveling, through a phone-line connection. Privacy and security are also on my mind. Web bugs are invisible pictures that cause my mail reader to send requests for information to distant server computers. And clever spammers, trolling for working e-mail addresses, use Web bugs to find new people whose contact information they can sell. Outlook isn' t the only offender.