Yes, I am indeed Going Through With It, and changing back to Outlook for my office email. I am already missing the search functionality of Gmail and its easy web access and so forth … and Outlook 2003 has already crashed on me twice … but I really need to get my calendaring and message formatting in order. And the Gmail/Exchange interface just isn’t cutting it.
I’ve spent a goodly chunk of the past few days using the Outlook client to IMAP into the Gmail account so I could archive off mail I need before I actively tie into my Exchange account and have the company’s 90-day policy zorch most of the last year. I used MessageExport (which I used before, and heartily recommend) to mass-archive out the selected messages via Outlook, along with their attachments. The sifting and selection took most of the week; the actual archiving took me about 2-3 hours this afternoon.
Note that I am not giving up on Gmail for my personal use, and don’t ever plan to. But for purposes of the office … I am (sigh) back in the Outlook saddle again. Or will be, once the network folks turn on the Outlook push to my Blackberry, and I attach my Outlook client to the actual Exchange servers when I get back in the office on Monday.
On the bright side, this will likely be one of the last of this endless series of wailing and gnashing of teeth over the subject. Though I’m sure there will be at least one more in the next few weeks, along the lines of, “MY GOD, THE OUTLOOK, IT BUUUURRRRNNNNS!!!”