"As of this week, Gmail has reached perfection." Now maybe they can take it out of Beta :) - Paul Buchheit from Bookmarklet

I thought Beta was part of the product name, Paul. :-) - Louis Gray

That's the only logical explanation. - Paul Buchheit

No, Gmail's not in beta. Google is. That's why the logo clearly reads "Gmail(TM) by Google BETA" - Kevin Fox

Boo. :) - Randy Holloway from twhirl

We have Google Apps at work, but my boss is a Microsoft guru and LOVES Outlook. I LOVE Gmail, so I've resisted most of his attempts to get me to pop Gmail down to Outlook. It's a battle every day. :) - Jandy

I use the Mail.app in Mac, but everything stays on the server. - Aaron Hood

Mail.app <3 - "Joey"

Not sure I understand this debate. I use Mail.app to access my Google hosted mail via IMAP. Best of both worlds and Google in no way "destroys" my use of Mail.app. I presume Outlook could do the same. - Nick in Manila

I love Gmail, but they still need better integration with other apps/platforms. For example, Google contacts needs to sync directly (and for free) with iPhone/iTunes, salesforce.com, etc. - Peter Ghosh

@Kevin - They're going to rename the company to Google BETA, Inc soon? ;) - Tyson Key

Sorry, I meant Google Calendar, not contacts . . . - Peter Ghosh

Gmail is a great consumer webmail, but in no way "destroys" Outlook. How does Gmail allow me to book conference rooms, or recall errant emails, or follow SOX retention policies? Both have their place and are leaders in their own area, but one does not supplant the other. - Ryan

Great writeup on Gmail. - Mike Reynolds

gold master gmail! - MG Siegler

one huge reason why Microsoft HATES Google, outlook is just one of the major pay for software offerings by MS that are being eroded in market share due to Google - The Real sofarsoShawn

Comparing GMail to Outlook is like comparing Apples to Fruit Salad. :) They're not the same, even if they overlap on a few features. - Kenneth LeFebvre

I would guess that Gmail is likely destroying Hotmail -- Outlook not so much. Still reason for Microsoft to be pissed at Google though. - Brian Sullivan

@psghosh, GCalendar has started syncing with iCal for some time now - check google's help for this: http://www.google.com/support... - Peter Fedin

Creative Destruction - good news for the public! - GlennIsaac

If you're not using Exchange, sure, gmail's a killer. - Mr. Gunn

Well done article. - Micah

I turned my tom(at)thomashawk.com email address over to gmail and I have to say that the reduction in spam is nothing short of remarkable. Every now and then I check the spam file and feel bad because real email gets trapped in there, but by and large it's awesome. - Thomas Hawk

Feels like I'm preaching to the choir here but have been using gmail in one form or another since almost the beginning. After spending years using mac mail to consolidate accounts went full gmail a few months ago because it just works better and the extras are great. Don't see how anybody can top it. The only other one I've tried which shows some potential is zenbe.com. - Mike Elliott

Agreed - Alistair (alpinefolk)

Gmail rocks! Once you start using it there's no going back. Two niggles though: Multiple signatures and blind group mailings, please! - Todd Brunner from twhirl

Gmail seems great at first - but recently, I have seen several messages disappear from my Inbox while I watch. Sometimes they reappear next time I check - sometimes not. Searching for reports of Gmail eating messages turns up a disturbingly high number of hits. Destroys Outlook? Maybe. Destroys messages? Yes. Not good enough, even for a free service! What use is 7 Gb of space - when it isn't 7 Gb of *reliable* space? - James from twhirl

so gmail finally has complete windows compatible keyboard macros, syncs my to my mobile phones, I can do my mailings with them, has an integrated crm system, and more? great. </sarcasm> (and I say this as an avid gmail user ...) - Nicole Simon

Switched to Gmail from Outlook and never looked back. - Roberto Bonini

didn't Bucheit invent Gmail according to Louis G? The opening shot in the downfall of Microsoft...? - The Real sofarsoShawn

He was on the team, yes - and did the prototype for the Gmail Ads, i belive. Don't be modest Paul. - Roberto Bonini

As much as I love gmail (I've got several accounts), I couldn't use it an office environment yet. Want to covert an email to an appointment or task just drag it to the calendar or task list in Outlook. Outlook also has search folders so I can set up folders for emails I got today. I know there are GreaseMonkey extensions to support search folders but Gmail's date searching is just crummy. - Andy Davies

I wish people would stop killing the aps I use...I hate that. - John D Reasor

Dukeswharf: POP/IMAP> Thunderbird> Enigmail (PGP) = offline+security+no ads (but no "new" features) - coldbrew

Nice. I still have more trust in self-administered PKI; is that naive? Are they using asymmetric or symmetric crypto? - coldbrew

Outlook destroyed Outlook the way MS destroys it's other products (and I have been an Outlook fan since '97): it became bloated and slow. - Peter Ghosh

I'll still use thunderbird since I have to centralize many different mail accounts (and want them to be clearly separated), but I must admit that Gmail made a good point here :-) - stanjourdan

Jourdan: Do you use PGP? We should have a key-signing party room on FF. Maybe I'll make one now... - coldbrew

Gmail is far from destroying Outlook. I still have to use Outlook for plenty of things. It is just a different tool. Feature by feature Google is way way behind Outlook. - Patrick Allmond

Gmail is the small business solution. Major corporations are way too private to be communicating outside the Outlook box. Yet Outlook has been shown in the past to have vulnerabilities. Security is less of an issue with smaller databases. Suits prefer the worn path, the grey rut. - Phil Boiarski

Sorry, I meant gmail's encryption. I don't think it has any PKI option. does it? - coldbrew

I don't understand that argument, Mark. By the same logic, Google couldn't be anything more than a niche search provider because nobody would trust a search engine that everyone uses. - Kevin Fox

"When Outlook fails on one computer, only one computer and one user is affected." Right, because a software vulnerability in Outlook is programmed and rolled out on a per customer basis. - virtually

There's just no way I'll use email software that uses the one-message-per-row paradigm again. The productivity gains from Conversations are just enormous. - jakebf

@mark: that's entirely true, if kind of a moot point based on the probability. If visa went down tomorrow, nobody would be able to pay for much of anything. If Comcast went down, most of us would have no internet connection. It's clearly your prerogative to run all your own software infrastructure, but I'd rather have the convenience of web based software. - Joel Webber

A lot of commentators are discussing chalk and cheese. Outlook is an email CLIENT / Application. GMail is another Client / Application. How you use each one is entirely up to each user. Most non-technical people think of Gmail as something they access via their browsers, whereas Outlook is a Microsoft Application that runs on their PC. Not entirely true. you can access GMail servers using any client (Outlook/Thunderbird). - Chris Wright from twhirl

Gmail+Gcal is an Outlook killer, no doubt about it. The day Gcal started sending SMS to my mobile with the reminders it also killed my old Palm Treo. - Jordi Soler

What Gmail does is make using Email for the normal non techie person easy. The reality is most home users do not use the power of Ouitlook. The issue with Gmail is good lick syncing a pda or smart phone to it it works well for the calendar but not for contacts. Also Gmail does not give you an e asy way to store messages in tact offliine. Outlook has a PST file for offline storage and backup. - Rob Cairns

As has been touched on in this thread. Gmail and Outlook are largely orthogonal. Outlook is a client. Gmail is a mail provider with a client. You can use Outlook with Gmail or another mail provider, but either way if that provider goes belly-up you're going to stop getting your mail for a bit. If you're concerned about your mail archives being hosted with someone else, then you should keep a local copy using a POP client, no matter what mail provider you happen to put your trust in. - Kevin Fox

I went from using internal gmail at google to using Outlook at my new job, and while I think there are good things and bad things about the two platforms, I miss the speed and portability of gmail, but I like some the task/calendar features in Outlook. If I had my druthers, I'd use gmail. - Ginger Makela Riker

"Gmail+Gcal is an Outlook killer, no doubt about it." Afraid not, Jordi, because GMail Contacts is a big ol' steaming cup of FAIL. When Google gets their act together on Contacts, then Outlook will be threatened. - John Craft

Outlook is a platform for working with "items"... countless times I have dropped into the built-in macro language to do things with my email, tasks, appointments, contacts, etc., that I could never do with a webmail application like Gmail. I wish I could stop using it, because I'll admit it's a hog on resources, but there is no alternative that will do EXACTLY what I want to do like Outlook will with my custom scripts in it. :) - Kenneth LeFebvre

GMail via a web browser is just using IMAP to access/control the mail on the mail server. You can set up Outlook/Thunderbird to access GMail using IMAP. It would be more accurate to say that using the GMail web interface has reduced the number of people using other client applications for accessing their email. - Chris Wright

Why are people comparing apples with oranges here? Client vs service? Thunderbird may beat Outlook, but not Gmail itself. I do recognize the web client is good, but is not nearly as flexible as a standalone. Plus, as has been mentioned by others, I need multiple account processing. Gmail fails at this. Gmail will remain my service of choice in the end. Tbird at home, Outlook at work. - Vince DeGeorge

@Vince, GMail does support multiple accounts, see http://mail.google.com/support... - Shakeel Mahate

@Enver: One example is automatically filling out my weekly timesheet from my calendar. Another example is automatically searching our company's online directory to grab mugshots for all my contacts, so I have their pictures to help me remember who's who... :) This is why I say Outlook is a *platform*. It seems to me that it would be an extraordinary amount of work to use something like Greasemonkey to actually add significant new functionality into Gmail, rather than just enhancing the user experience. - Kenneth LeFebvre

BTW, I'm not knocking Gmail. I actually use it to host my own email domain... I'm just making the case that it's not an apples-to-apples comparison to put Gmail and Outlook in the same category. - Kenneth LeFebvre

Hotmail offline access has been available for over a year now with Windows Live Mail client. Can't make out why the same feature for Gmail is that exciting. They are not the first one to enable this feature. Zoho and Hotmail has been having these for a long time. - Amar Shah

Gmail rocks... hate when some old relatives still write to my hotmail and I gotta go in there to get it, just because microsoft won't allow automatic forward to gmail. - Peter Efland