My main mail client is Outlook 2002. This is no corporate mandate; it's just me here. I've had lots of problems with Outlook over the years and on occasion I've tried to change to another program, but I've always come back. There's just no other program that does all the key things it does. Why not? We've talked this question over here at Tech Update: Why has the software industry not produced a plug-in replacement for Microsoft Outlook? Few products, even other Microsoft products, get as much bad press as Outlook. Personally I think most of the criticism of Outlook is overstated, but that's not what's important. There's a market opportunity here.

The real key, especially in the corporate market, is to produce a client that supports Microsoft Exchange and is interoperable with Outlook for supporting e-mail, calendaring, and some other groupware features. Instead, the software industry seems more taken with the notion of replacing Exchange and leaving Outlook in place. Oracle has their Collaboration Suite and Bynari makes a number of server products that support Outlook clients.