Microsoft Outlook still has the largest market share for corporate email clients. Unfortunately Microsoft has allowed the product to grow bloated without introducing any of the productivity features found in other mail clients. Here’s six reasons why it’s time for Outlook to go:
1. Folders Don’t Work Anymore
The idea that mail belongs in one and only one folder is ridiculous. Over 15 years ago Lotus Notes allowed emails to be categorized under multiple topics without physically duplicating mail but Outlook still clings to it’s archaic folder paradigm. Modern mail clients support Tags so mail can be bookmarked and accessed in any manner the user finds intuitive.
2. Search Is Still Broken
Not only does searching mail suck but searching Calendar or Contacts is horrible as well. Outlook search is slow, cumbersome, produces mediocre results and hasn’t been significantly upgraded in the last 10 years.
3. They Can’t Even Get The Inbox Right
Email involves conversations, not just individual messages. After all these years Outlook still can’t present logical threads of conversations to be read, archived, or deleted as a unified topic. Today, email is used to communicate in threads, not messages, but Outlook is still stuck in the 1990’s.
4. Archiving Is Frustrating
If you have ever tried to restore a single archived email from a .PST backup file you know how time consuming and down right painful this experience can be. Why is such a basic and vital function still so difficult after all these years?
5. Outlook Web Access (OWA) Is Too Lame for Words
OWA may be packaged with Exchange Server but, as the name implies, it’s part of the Outlook brand and is intended exclusively for Outlook users. OWA has a ridiculously narrow set of features that can’t even stack up against Hotmail. If the message you want isn’t sitting on top of your Inbox folder; Good luck finding it. OWA doesn’t even have a basic “FIND” function.
6. Junk and Spam Handling are Non-Existent
The Junk Mail tool included in Outlook is a joke. Microsoft has ignored user’s needs in this area while the importance of the topic has steadily increased for over a decade. Considering most of us have bought Outlook numerous times since it was bundled with Office in 1997, it might be nice if Microsoft showed a little effort in this area.
From its earliest beginnings, email has been a vital function to every business. Users have grown more sophisticated as well as more dependent on email and most mail clients have matured to meet their needs. However, Microsoft has allowed Outlook to settle into a state of decay similar to their IE5 Browser. It took an open source competitor like Firefox to wake up Microsoft by grabbing a significant slice of the browser market and IE7 still hasn’t caught up to Firefox 3. Outlook is about to suffer the same fate as the cost savings of Cloud Computing entices corporate America into adopting more sophisticated web-based mail. There will be some hardliners that struggle to keep Outlook functioning with Cloud-based mail but why bother. It feels so liberating and productive to just let go of Outlook and start using a 21st century mail client.
4 Comments
Just a comment on reason nr. 1:
You do not have to work with folders. And the tagging you mention can easily be covered by adding categories (multiple!) to an email.
With rules you can even automate this process.
You are correct! It’s been so long since I checked out Categories that I forgot it exists. After looking it over again I see it hasn’t changed since the last time I saw it. You may have made this feature second nature so perhaps you don’t see the glaring flaw here: You can’t categorize a message while you are reading it. You must be in the Folder view for the Category option to appear in the menu. From a usability standpoint this makes Categories a “stealth” feature that is not intuitive to find or use. The same argument applies to the Follow Up Flag which is only available while reading a message and disappears when you are in the Folder view. These simple but vital usability tweaks is what makes a product mature and worthy of repurchase from release to release. I’m afraid Outlook is stuck in adolescence and will probably never grow up.
I just comment reason nr2:
there are search tools which solve this problem pretty good (i do not mean windows desktop search
)
perhaps you shoult try somwthing like that.
i use outlook at work and i´m happy with it.
-dan-
Thanks for the tip. Over the last two days I have started receiving tips from friends and colleagues about living with Outlook. I know I can install a search tool, a spam tool, an archive utility, an anti-phishing utility, etc… I can even satisfy most of these needs with freeware or open source products. But I have been paying good money for each new release of Office since 1997 with nothing to show for it in Outlook. I believe the rise of Cloud Computing is going to force a tipping point where users decide the familiarity of Outlook does not outweigh its immaturity. Outlook is already fading and I don’t think Microsoft will lift a finger to save it. The real challenge for Microsoft will be saving Exchange in the face of Cloud Computing.