Still using MS Outlook?

What are you nuts? Seriously, if you’re still using Outlook or any email client for that matter, then you’re not reading the writing on the wall.

Email clients like Outlook, Eudora, Macmail and others are all applications or programs designed to primarily do one thing, and that is to fetch email from an email account. The problem is that they tie you to a single computer.

Most all of these email clients are also slow, take of a lot of your computer resources and make it difficult to organize your emails. I know, you’re probably thinking that’s not true. You have folders and move emails into folders to stay organized, right? That’s not organized, at least not organized as it compares to using Labels and Filters like those found in Gmail and Google Apps. You can read more about Labels and Filters on our site.

Outlook is also particularly prone to problems in that everything, all your emails, attachments, contacts and calendar all reside in one massive file called a PST file. Should this one PST file ever become corrupt, lost or infected… you better have a very recent backup and your MS Office installation disk to do a full re-install.

These are just a few of the problems not to mention the fact that Outlook is a “porker” of a program. It hogs a lot of your computers resources when open. It’s for this reason and more that email clients like Outlook are quickly becoming a thing of the past and being replaced with web based solutions. A perfect example of these web based email solutions is Yahoo mail, Hotmail and Gmail. Where you use a web browser instead of an installed program to manage all your email.

Eventually all email clients like Outlook will be replaced by web based email. Even Microsoft agrees, think about it… The last “real” version of MS Outlook was Outlook 2003. Microsoft never released Outlook 2004, 2005, 2006 and it’s only because of Vista (I get shivers just saying it), that Microsoft was forced to put out Outlook 2007.

When it comes to these new web based solutions, nothing but nothing compares to Google email. Gmail and Google Apps run circles around Outlook or for that matter, any other web based email solution as well.

Even programs like MS Word are going to be web based. For example, in the very near future, MS Word won’t be a program you install and run on your computer. Instead it will likely be ported over to a web based application where you will pay a subscription fee to use it and with all subscriptions being run through the basement in Redmond, WA.

What has happened is that Google has beaten Microsoft to the punch. No longer do you need to have Word, Excel, Powerpoint or Outlook as programs installed on our computers. With the advent of Gmail and Google Apps you now have the ability to manage all your email from any computer connected to the Internet using your web browser. Google’s web based solutions also give you the ability to create calendars, documents, presentations, spreadsheets as well as share them with any other Gmail or Google Apps user. And just to add icing to the cake, it’s free!

Historically however Microsoft doesn’t take blows like these laying down. Their answer to Gmail and Google Apps is a product/service called Windows Live Mail. But to compare the two is like comparing “Apples to Pneumatic Shock Absorbers”. Microsoft knows full well that Google has beaten them to the punch. Why do you think Microsoft is making just a huge push to buy Yahoo? Hello…

Wake up folks. If you’re not using Google’s web based email, shared calendars and docs, then you’re simply missing the boat. If you’re still using Outlook to manage your email then you’re simply wasting time, being unproductive and prolonging the inevitable.

Take my advice and stop using Outlook or any other email client. Instead, start using Gmail or better yet Google Apps. It is the closest thing to online “true love”. If you don’t believe me, try it yourself. Then tell me if you don’t agree that Google Apps and Gmail aren’t the best thing since sliced bread.