Bye, Bye Microsoft Outlook

March 14, 2008

Microsoft, o que vem por aí? It’s time has come, or passed rather… at least for me.  I’m sure I’ll cross paths with my favorite email client and PIM in the future.  I’ll either have a change of heart (unlikely) or a future client will insist that I use it for internal email at their location (very likely).

For all those anti-Microsoft folks that love to hear things like this, I simply have to say that it has little to do with the product.  It does have everything to do with the way I work.  As I transition much of my work online, I’m finding that I use more than one or two computers.  Since it’s much harder to sync all the data on all these machines, and the fact that I simply can’t do this on some, leads me to world of cloud computing.

This is nothing new for me, I’ve been an advocate of leveraging the cloud for years, but it’s the first concerted effort to simply migrate my data and shift my app usage online.  Yes this includes office productivity solutions as well.  I’ll be using a lot of both Google Apps and Zoho Office.  Both have their strong points and I’m aiming to leverage both for different reasons.

I’ve got most of my data on either XDrive or SkyDrive for differing reasons, and use Box.net as well for some always accessible drivers, tables, code snippets, and such.

I’ll keep MS Office Pro installed, but it’s use is limited to supporting my clients – nothing more.  So join me, if you wish, and see how well this works out!  I’ll share my frustrations and my wins equally with you.

Have you been thinking of doing the same?  What are your directions on how you work, looking into the future?

Photo credit: Daniel F. Pigatto

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Categories: microsoft, software, web 2.0

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  • Kelli
    My Outlook keeps getting jammed up. I had about 15 emails coming in with CAD files and the program just sits there with an hour glass symbol. So I have to leave and do desk paperwork until it frees itself. I've tried repair several times, and reinstall. I can't do anything else with the other programs while this thing is trying to receive the e-mails either. I am very frustrated at this point. Do you have any suggestions?
    Thanks, Kelli
    P.S. I like your web page...did you design it yourself?
  • Ricky Ross
    RAWUSS THA BAWUSS AGREES!
  • Eden
    hi, does anyone knows if there's any program for business contact info (including credit card info)better than Act and ms outlook?
    thank you very much
  • @apple mac laptop
    Happy for you. Of course you'll never use this app as it's a Windows application. Of course Microsoft created Entourage for the Mac, which is similar but different. The point I was making is that online applications are coming close to matching the feature set that the average user needs. For me, that need has been met with online email and calendar - it has nothing to do with the software being Microsoft products.

    Cheers,
    Rick
  • thats right, bye2 microsoft outlook, cos i ll never use this application
  • Hey there Zoli - I just read that post where you talk about making that change. Good post! Yeah, there are a few things a person needs to hang onto, but office productivity apps is not necessarily one of them.

    Each time I fire up an application, I question myself whether it's really needed any longer. The only stuff I think I'll really end up needing are things for pulling video off the camcorder, creating some graphic stuff, and burning CD/DVD media. I may take some notes over the next few weeks and compile a list of software people can replace with online services, and a list of software that people should really think about keeping.

    Thanks for sharing your experience on switching as well!
  • It took you a while, but congrat's anyway :-)
    I quit Outlook (and most desktop software) a year ago. But like you, I did not throw it off my computers...so it sits their, but even in it's coma-like state it is cause of frustration.
    Yesterday I turned on a older laptop I haven't used for a long while. It spent the next hour updating itself - XP, Office.. you name it. Revenge of the Desktop. :-(
  • Dave H.
    Ideally, I'm looking to discover the holisitic Apple approach, or to find if one even exists. Apple has great iDisk syncing built into the OS, as well syncing of all sorts of information and the Back to My Mac feature. Unfortunately, to really get full benefit of these, one must have multiple Macs, which I do not at this time. Hopefully I'll be able to grab a MacBook by the end of this year and really see some benefit out of my .Mac subscription.
  • Hi Kevin!
    Yeah, I'm keeping it installed simply for use with potential clients and for syncing my contacts to my aging T-Mobile MDA (HTC Wizard). I really, really like Outlook and hate giving up the power and flexibility in the software, but... I simply am working different. Much like you I'm doing much of my work in a browser, and using different machines for different needs at different times. Guess I've swapped one Monopolist for another in using GMail, but as you mention, IMAP works too darn well.

    Regards,
    Rick
  • I've generally done the same since October. Not only leaving MS Outlook, but shutting down a hosted Microsoft Exchange plan in the process and saving a few bucks as well. Once Google implemented their IMAP solution, that was it for me. Working on multiple devices and platforms daily (depending on the task). I am keeping Outlook on a single Tablet PC, but that's solely so I can ink my responses when appropriate... or when they need that personal touch! :) There are also plenty of Google Calendar sync tools for both PC and Mac, so I'm not losing anything on the cal side of the house. Tasks and contacts are another story... using Remember The Milk and its various plugins for tasks. Contact management is still a bit of challenge, but I expect that to get better over time. It used to be that Windows Mobile / Outlook / Exchange was the only usable game in town, but the game has changed.
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