Today I stopped using Outlook.  I have been using the program since since 1997 (before that I used mainframe email, my how times have changed) and loved the productivity gains over "Big Blue".  I could now "drag and drop" attachments into my email, and archive contacts easily.  It was enough to make me switch.

Then came PDA's where I could actually SYNC my data and take it with me!  Wow.  I was in heaven.

However, recently, I purchased a new phone.  An Android.  With the internet included.  My contacts are automatically synchronized?  My email is downloaded to the device automatically?  Talk about perfection! (Yes, I realize for now.)

This all of course is assuming you have your email and data in... GMail.  Well of course you can synchronize your mail without GMail, but here are the things that made me switch.

1) Contacts: They just work.  They are synchronized between GMail and my phone without doing anything.  With Outlook there still isn't an easy way to synchronize my contacts into GMail.

2) Consolidation of accounts: I can consolidate my accounts into GMail and read them all at one location.  Replies are handled well, using the account the email was sent to and labels help identify which account the email came from.  Yes, I realize I could do this with Outlook, but #2 leads to #3, and makes it powerful.  Super powerful.

3) Search: I have every email archived from the past year into GMail (using 11% of the storage) and I can do FAST searches for anything.  This beats Outlooks "mail is still indexing" when trying to do searches hands down.  I can also do these searches across ALL my mail (so I don't have to remember which account I used to book that flight) instead of having to look through "folders" and PST files.

4) Mark as Read: No longer do I have emails on my device that I already read in Outlook.  When I read the email in Google and archive it, it disappears from my device.  And vica versa, which is really the point.  No work wasted no matter where I "process" my email.

5) Filters: I can now use Google filters to have email skip my InBox and have labels applied.  I can view the email later, and not worry about looking at it on my mobile device.

6) Out of Office: Now global.  I didn't have Exchange so I had to leave Outlook up to have Out of Office emails sent.  Now Google handles it for me.

These things may not seem like a lot, but neither did being able to drag and drop attachments and handle contacts back in 1997.

It was enough to make me switch... food for thought that critical mass for change often comes in incremental doses, not blockbuster releases.

Well done Google, well done indeed.  By capitalizing on your strength (search) and working backwards into a solution you have made life easier.  Neither Apple or Microsoft can keep up with these productivity gains in the email space.  However, I cannot wait to seem them try!  Bring on the NBT I say, I need to work faster.