Brad Feld RSS Feed: Exchanging Apple

[David Sandusky]

My RSS Feed is a Thinker and Has Just Posted the Following:

My switch to the Mac is not going well.  The evidence for this is that both Amy and I are continuing to work on our PCs even though we have beautiful new Mac Laptops loaded up with software and fully configured.  Every few days I try again - and then bail after an hour or so of frustration.
One of my biggest barriers is Exchange integration.  Since we use Exchange extensively (including Tasks), there's a meaningful switching cost to move off of it.  Microsoft Entourage 2004 sucks.  I've been a beta tester for Microsoft Entourage 2008 which is better, but still doesn't support a bunch of basic Exchange integration (like Tasks) and has numerous UI yuckiness.
Yeah - I know that I can use Mac Mail and sync with Exchange, but that doesn't get me very far in a mixed use environment (Calendar, Contacts, Tasks anyone?)  I know I can use Parallels or Fusion to run an XP or Vista image on my Mac to run Outlook, but if I'm going to do that I might as well just live with my PC.  And I know we could switch off Exchange, but I'm not going to begin to try to fathom that (although Ross is playing around with it.)
As I watch all my Mac friends "deal with this" (e.g. Ryan), they make it work but the cost is non-trivial.  It'd be so much easier if Apple would just decide to really support Exchange natively within their apps (and on the iPhone.)
Hmmm - maybe they are. 




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