Summary
Gmail should not be overlooked for business use as its mobility and collaboration features provide a real benefit.

Bad points about Outlook:

• Very limited mobility - cannot login and view past emails
• All emails stored on the computer that they were downloaded to. What happens to your emails when that pc is formatted or dies?
• Limited calendar sharing (if you are not using MicroSoft Exchange)
• No document sharing feature

Good points about Outlook:

• Can type up emails offline
• Can look up emails without internet connection

Good points about Gmail:

• Mobility - login and view emails from anywhere in the world with an internet connection
• 6gb to store your email - never delete an email again
• Online calender - share calender with anyone who has a gmail account
• Share documents
• No need to backup - its all stored online

Bad points about Gmail:

• Needs a stable internet connection - If you net goes down so does Gmail
• Gmail is an online service - If the Gmail service fails then you dont have access to emails

The major benefit Gmail has over Outlook is its mobility. With Gmail you can log on anywhere that has internet connection and browse through all your emails. This is a very big advantage. imagine if you are at a clients workplace, and they ask if you could resend an email? Easy. Just login and resend. The other good thing about gmail is the fact you will never have to delete your emails. It has 6gb of space! That's alot of emails - all stored online with the easy convenience of logging in anywhere where this is a internet connection.

Outlook does not offer any mobility (except if you have expensive Exchange Server). As soon as outlook downloads your email down, you can only view that email on that computer. There is a setting to tell Outlook to download the email and leave the email on the server, but this will eventually result in a full inbox (where you wont be able to send and receive emails). Outlook stores its emails on your computer HDD and is liable to be lost when your computer crashes. Also if you go over your Inbox limit you will no longer receive emails.

Using gmail does not mean you have to use john@gmail.com as your email address. Gmail can be setup so you can send and receive emails using john@mynewbusiness.com and/or contact@mynewbusiness.com. See the article "Using Google Apps to power your small business" for more information.

Gmail also has alot of other really handy functions such as

• Calender - you can share your calender with anyone else who has gmail account
• Google docs - you can use an online word processor, share and collaborate on documents

Disclaimer: DeboSoft is an avid fan of Gmail