Microsoft Outlook 2002

Summary: Here's my perspective. As a simple POP-Mail client Outlook 2002 or even upcoming Outlook 2003 makes little sense. As a PIM purely speaking or as a CRM solution it probably doesn't make a lot of sense. But hands-down Outlook, for folks who need to connect people events and tasks just rocks. If you need to make those "six degrees of separation" come together there simply isn't another solution on the market. It is very difficult to find a client/server solution that has web capability, the ability to share calendars across an organization, share contacts, share tasks, delegate user access and connect all the bits and pieces together. You simply cannot connect emails with contacts with calendar events and tasks on any other application. It doesn't exist. Separate those elements out and you can find better solutions. If you have no desire to meet Jane at 2:00 p.m. with a presentation and oh, don't forget to bring the marketing paraphenalia and by the way make a reservation for lunch - or delegate that to someone else - then cool - use a simple solution like a Lotus product or a Groupwise product. Because those folks provide a weak calendar, weaker still "address book" and virtually no integration. Furthermore no groupware package I've seen tracks tasks, messaging and the like all in one. I also don't know of a solution that includes calendaring, contact management, task management and the like, that is fully sharable that offers dialing capability. And just find a solution that integrates document sharing - and tracks those documents and has all the other functionality. I don't understand whiners who use a product for the purpose for which it was NOT intended and then whine and gripe about it. Microsoft Outlook fills a niche that competitors have yet to even come close to. I whacked other vendors on the head so many times - CRM solution providers such as Goldmine and Poweronsoftware to provide even a quarter of Outlooks capability - but they just don't see it. And forget Lotus - all they see is database technology. They simply don't understand the need to combine events, people and tasks together - it boggles them - and they simply don't see the small business or individual or home user as even being involved. When are software providers going to grasp what Microsoft obviously sees with Outlook: people need to organize the people, events and tasks in their lives - whether at home or at work - whether on the road or in a standard office environment. The market seems so very clear to me - I'm just not sure what these folks are griping about when they say the don't like Outlook - when you take all of the product into account what direct competition is there? NONE There isn't one competitor in the marketplace that can touch Outlook. Competitors have some of the features, but they can't touch the intergation, they can't touch the tracking tools, they can't touch how Outlook links a contact with a calendar item with a task with documents and carries most of that information over to Palms and PDA's and makes it accessible via a client solution or via the web. When I see the level of information sharing and exchange in another solution I'll consider it - but I haven't - it's just not on the radar scope.