Are You Still Using Outlook in your business?

In the last couple of years, there has been a massive move away from traditional email clients like Outlook, Outlook Express, Thunderbird etc....

Here are just some of the reasons:

1. The growth of SmartPhones and tablets meant more hassles trying to secure and sync your email, contacts etc.... 
2. Data Security and the growing size of that data. If you forgot to backup that data and your PC crashed, your primary concern was recovering that data
3. Getting a new PC meant transferring all of that data and that could get expensive.
4. For businesses managing their own email servers, email was just one cost factor that could be minimized by using newer technologies.
5. I could go on and on but those are the key points.....

Do I still use Outlook? The answer is Yes and No, let me explain.

I use GOOGLE Apps. I suppose I could be using Office 365 or some other similar medium but, for me, GOOGLE Apps is just what I prefer. I am not alone. In North America, even large government agencies and businesses have made the move.

GOOGLE Apps is a "cloud" service. Nothing new or revolutionary about that since all email is essentially a "cloud" service. What's different about it and other initiates like Office 365 and Outlook.com is that "Webmail" has become very powerful with features that can outshine the features you could previously only find in programs like Outlook.

Even if there haven't been any situations I am aware of where there was permanent data loss attributable to a GOOGLE Data Center crash, I don't want to tempt fate so I use Outlook as a POP client to give me a local hard copy of my GOOGLE Apps data. I know many others who use different means of accomplishing the same thing or don't bother with it at all.

So what has the move done for me?

• I manage my email using a browser on my PC, on my Laptop, on my Tablet and SmartPhone. I generally do not use the email clients built into my SmartPhone or Tablet. 
• Any decent browser on any decent device will work just fine. 
• If I read and archive or delete my email on any of my devices, I don't need to redo it on any of my other devices.
• If I were to lose my laptop, I won't have to worry since the data on it is slim or non-existent.
• Getting a new SmartPhone, Tablet, Laptop or PC is a much smoother affair.
• The rules I have setup to automatically label incoming email work the same on all of my devices.
• The signature attached to email is the same no matter which device is being used.
• Contacts and appointments are the same on all of my devices without having to plug in anything.
• Much of the SPAM and other virus laden email that flood Outlook inbox's everywhere never make it to my inbox
• I can manage a zero inbox solution that I could never have accomplished with Outlook. Saves a ton of time.