This guy sounds like he is just using the desktop sync with his Blackberry and Outlook. Most people use the Blackberry Enterprise Server their company has, and these suggestions wouldn't work for that. They headline is a bit misleading in the way it talks about the Blackberry. For corporate e-mail these solutions are really viable.

Plus, all your friends will love you when they start getting plaxo spam.

I meant "NOT viable" in my last sentence. I usually don't correct myself, but I felt it was warranted here.

I moved all my email to gmail, but I still use outlook at home to check my gmail. I like using the outlook client, and I have a local backup. Personally I dont compare gmail and outlook, its more of a ISP email vs. gmail comaprison. Outlook is just a client.

Couldn't you replace the 1st four items with Mozilla?

Really, you can replace the first 5 with a Blackberry ;). It really is an incredible little device when used properly, and not using the dumb syncing except for backup. I use my Blackberry with my gmail and school email (which is really an inredible feat, as our school email is not setup very well). The only thing that is a bit inconvenient is using with with my work's exchange server, as we don't have (or need) the Blackberry Enterprise server software. But really, I don't care to have work email on my phone :)

As far as my home use goes, I'd rather keep Outlook to grab my Gmail(s). It is a little annoying to keep opening my browser whenever I get a new email.

I'm enjoying the part about having to run mutliple seperate applications to get the same job done. Resource hogging, anyone?

What a misleading title...

I didn't RTFA, but I have a Crackberry from work and we have a BES server. I have no interest in divorcing it.

Having all my data available only when I'm online would be a huge inconvenience, and I don't see the attraction in paying mobile internet charges.

I've been syncing Outlook with my iPaq for 6+ years now, without a single problem. I've never lost my iPaq. I've upgraded a few times, but I've never had a problem resyncing the data with the new model.

Of course I would never use Outlook for email (unless my company required it), but my thunderbird profile directory is synced to my thumb drive every morning. I rarely need to access the contents, but it's there when I need it.

If you're not on a corporate network that relies on Outlook/Exchange, switching to Gmail/Gcal is definitely a viable option. If you are on an Exchange-based network, there really is no other option but Outlook (and please don't start in on Evolution!). Fortunately, though, there are both client and server-based options that allow you to sync your Outlook data with most cellphone networks. And, of course, OWA gets the job done when you're using a browser. It's not perfect, but it gets the job done.

Plaxo is hideous. Spam spam spam.

So, why would I want to dump Outlook. It works great with both my Yahoo mail addy and my work email.

This seems unecessarily complocated- not sure how that's a "painless divorce."

Virtually all phones (the ones which can access web-based apps at least) can sync with Outlook anyway, so the advantage that he "can now use any phone he wants" must be fairly marginal.

Unless you absolutely hate Outlook of course!

Okay, what about those of us behind a work firewall? We can't see plaxo, can't get to yahoo mail, or google mail or ANY mail outside of our work mail. Without my Treo, I'd never see any email or schedules outside of work.

I guess I don't really understand the point of all this. I use Thunderbird because it allows me to consolidate all of my email (from multiple addresses) into one platform.

I just all about having choices. It really bother me that you need to buy third party applications to use Thunderbird with ActiveSync. Microsoft will always kill of competition if it has a chance, which is off course business wise a smart move, but at the same time upsets millions of customers.