Yeah, I know Steve Rubel's post on Dumping Microsoft is a few days old… but I couldn't let this one slip by without plunking down my two cents. I, too, have wrestled with the iSwitch. Despite how much I might complain about the state of consumer Windows software, I find myself reluctant to leave the platform's speed behind for something a lot more expensive – even if it's a lot more elegant. Why can't I have the best of both worlds, I ask you? Some say it's really coming with OS X on Intel, but I'll let my eyes be the ultimate judge. Although I own a pretty li'l (big) iMac G5, I don't use it as my primary machine at home. I'm still jealous of all the OS X programs and developers, who truly understand that aesthetics come FIRST!!! This is a sharp contrast against my disapointed observations of more recent builds of Windows Vista (Longhorn). I want 100% of coders to write software once and have it run anywhere. Perhaps I'm just being too damn idealistic again.
It's when I don't say anything that you should start to worry. If I didn't care, I wouldn't bother to tell someone what's wrong (or what's right). I have several reasons to dislike newer versions of Microsoft Outlook – including the “lock up whenever I damn well please” feature. Ultimately, I made it to the person who needed to hear my list of complaints – and that person listened to what I had to say. With any luck, those observations will be directly impacting the next version of the PIM. If you sit there and say it's “good enough” or “better than anything else,” you're not helping the product – you're hurting it. I'm platform and brand agnostic, mind you. I also believe that Microsoft is headed down a decent path with Vista (including the way they're rolling out Avalon, WinFS, Indigo, et al). The next version of Office has promise, too. Let's see some “Power User” / Extreme editions, eh?