Why is it some people just can’t stand MS Outlook? I don’t know. It doesn’t filter spam well. It doesn’t adhere to any real standards for email or calendar sharing. It is a memory hog. Viruses kill the joy like wrinkles in your cotton shirts first thing in the morning. You can’t pull in external accounts (yahoo, gmail, other domains easily). No IMAP. RSS support is there, I guess, but still lousy. And if you’ve ever used a mac you just feel kinda dirty using it.

So last week I decided to abandon Outlook at work and run everything through Gmail. Sure, it means I get no support from tech support at the mothership. But it also means I don’t have to worry about my desktop Outlook failing to connect to a remote exchange server.

We’re still in the testing phase here but things are looking up. With Gmail open I have multiple email addresses that I use for work coming to one inbox. I have IM right there. I have instant access to RSS feeds (which sit in Firefox’s Live Feeds, not Google Reader) and one-click access to Google Calendars and docs. Oh, and nice clean integration with Gmail on the blackberry.

So far. So good…