3 options open to you:

1) Use MS Outlook through parallels or fusion in coherence mode

2) Use MS Entourage, the mac version of MS Outlook.

3) Use the free stuff that comes with macs, like Mail, iCal, TestEdit, etc.

Vista runs perfectly fine on Mac hardware, in fact, I’d say better, simply because Apple, being a hardware company, focuses on the best driver support… no need for Vista to work too hard when the drivers developed by apple for their specific hardware has more time and care put into it than all the 3rd party parts manufacturers trying desperately to develop for Vista.

One machine, both Operating Systems… how can you go wrong? You run Windows on a Mac, but you can’t run Mac on a standard PC. Due to the fact that a true OS designed for productivty needs to spend more time working for you, rather than against you with incompatible hardware. Micorosft should have gone into the hardware industry, instead they chose to try and support every 3rd party product on the market… this lowers the stability, means Microsoft spends more time trying to fix bugs with hardware than it does focusing on productivity features… which is why Mac OS is chosen by so many television studios, movie studios, photographers, musicians, graphic artists and web developers… productivity is at the core of Apple.

Just remember… the best of both worlds, or pigeonholed into a proprietary world with no where to go… the choice is simple.

I have owned and sold 3 companies and currently on my 4th. We are a tech company, specializing in Web Services and although our primary server is running Windows Server 2003, I have now switched all of my systems (Workstations, Finance/Billing, Development) over to Mac OS X and have never looked back. I was also tied to the Outlook incompatibility, which I blame solely on Microsoft’s lack of desire to be compatible with anything not made by them. I mean come on, Microsoft is trying to replace PDF and Flash files as the standard for their own technology that will only work on Windows and IE.

Lets face it Chris. There is nothing on Windows that you require, and the Outlook excuses is just that… an excuse… and I hear it all too often from Windows zealots, who deep down inside, are simply afraid of change. Believe me, I even heard it from myself. I am a Microsoft Certified Technician, ran 2 computer design, installation and repair companies, had a crew of .NET developers, but they are gone now. I have no use for them as I deal now only in cross platform application development. It is an idea that Microsoft refuses to embrace.

Make the switch… this is coming from a long time Windows user and developer… don’t let an excuse like Outlook be the reason… something tells me you are not familiar with OS X, outside of others telling you about it, because one you use it for 1 week, I guarantee you won’t want to go back to Windows. Its that simple.

Oh, and by the way, to the poster above calling himself j. brotherlove, am I correct in that you just told Chris he couldn’t tinker wtih a Mac? Are you that uninformed? Mac OS runs on BSD UNIX… you can’t get any more tinker capable than a UNIX machine. You happen to not understand what UNIX is, how to use it and the capabilities that run circles around Windows NT based systems…. Tinker is one thing LINUX/UNIX systems excel at. Don’t use lies and misunderstanding as a reason to hide your fear of switching.

From what I can tell you sit around in a t-shirt and work at home. Like I, and most intelligent people do.

At any rate I’d like to see that list of indispensable Windows Software that wont run on OS X.

And you can keep your PC box. install osX86 on it.

I’d dump the groups/businesses/organizations that require faxing to a more current technology group that uses email

Skype has been available on the Mac for a long time, and is up past version 2 now, and includes video.

“Citing concerns over cost and compatibility, the top technology official at the federal Department of Transportation has placed a moratorium on all in-house computer upgrades to Microsoft’s new Windows Vista operating system, as well as Internet Explorer 7 and Office 2007, according to a memo obtained Friday by InformationWeek.”

Looks like you’re not alone in your concerns about Vista not being fully baked ;-)