[1] http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/04/30/xobni-walks-away-from-a...

1. Search your Yahoo! Mail without leaving Outlook

2. Instant Facebook Status and Photos

3. Smart Skype Integration

4. Hoover’s arms you with instant research on your contacts’ employers

why stop at that? gmail integrates the ENTIRE INTERNET!!! here's stunning secret (using ff key shortcuts):

- when in gmail, hit "ctrl-t"

- done!

I think Xobni's person-oriented metaphor is a very strong one. It doesn't replace Outlook's UI, but it does add a lot of value to it.

In Gmail, I end up with dozens of labels and filters putting mail in each of those labels. Many of them basically group mail by people, which is Xobni's strength. I love the idea of seeing that person and all conversations you've had with them separated out without having to create that through a label system. It's such a common thing to want to reference, but not as easy as it could be in Gmail.

It's also great to have quick access to files sent by that person, separate from emails. Digging through emails to find the right one that a file attachment was attached to is no fun in Gmail or pretty much any other mail program. Xobni wins on this front big time.

Another is seeing relations between people. I do this by filtering groups (usually by common domain, but then there are exceptions for personal email addresses too) into their own labels like "Client X" and "Client Y" for my most active clients, since keeping them all in one stream is just too much to manage. But being able to quickly drill down to Joe who works with Steve when Steve mentioned something Joe was supposed to send you would be really nice. Another Xobni win there too.

Gmail Labs sounded like a good idea, but while a few are pretty useful, most of the options in there are a joke. A snake game? Come on. Randomized signatures? How about selectable signatures already?

They really need to start thinking a bit bigger to continue improvements. Gmail is far from perfect, and while Xobni isn't a complete client unto itself, it is a nice addition to one to be sure.

Seems like you haven't worked out the 'search' functionality on gmail. Why are you grouping/labeling/etc? Just search for someones name and find all their email.

I have been using the Xoopit media plugin. It has turned all my pictures into a very nice and simple photo album. It even works well with my files at work. All the documents are organized and you can see those screenshots within gmail without opening a new window.

Xobni, when is the Gmail plugin coming?

now let me guess a thousand respondents will tell me they are "forced" to use outlook. i call bullshit. where are these mythical phbs that walk around checking on what mail client you are using. and don't tell me you have to use outlook to extract excrete...err exchange calendar notifications...it took me all of about ten minutes to extract those in gnus using elisp

Those people are forced to use Outlook.

Also, your average employee is unlikely to replace Outlook with the 'better' solution of extracting calendar information using 'gnus using elisp'.

Or even better, Lotus Notes. Ick! What will save us from that hell?

Apparently the 8.5 client sucks slightly less, but I can't get that til I upgrade to Leopard.

yes actually i do. and no, no one cares what email client i use

name three real companies where every employee is FORCED to use outlook

In non-software companies the applications on the desktop are centrally managed and it's just not possible to use workarounds that engineers would find acceptable.

If I was forced in the workplace to use it, I'd quit. Same with IE6. If a company forces you to use either of those, they're clearly not going to be around very long.

Like it or not, Outlook and Exchange are still the best-in-class solution for enterprise messaging, which is why they're used. If you can't understand why that is, then I hope you've never worked in an enterprise. Perhaps you'd prefer Lotus Notes?

I'm not a Microsoft fanboy by any means; I have a Mac and use Gmail every day. But being able to put aside one's biases and pick the right tool for the job is the difference between an IT professional and a zealot.

BTW I would rather change career than become an "IT professional".

Obviously, practically none of this is stuff you can't find elsewhere. But if you know of a single other offering as complete as Exchange, I'd love to hear about it. And perhaps the biggest point of all: extensive integration with Active Directory, which is the directory service of choice in a huge percentage of enterprises.

It is just like creating a beast with 800 heads, which will kill anyone that touches it. The result is that every one of the services you mentioned is poorly implemented in Exchange.

The real solution is to use open standards to create applications in each of those areas that can really solve individual problems. That is how software that really works is created. Thanks to M$, we are far away from a decent solution in these terms.

Integration is not a bad thing. If you don't like the way Microsoft does it -- whether it be the quality of their implementation, or their disregard for standards compliance, or whatever -- that's cool, and I don't even disagree. But business decisions are made based on the bottom line, not on ideology. If Exchange meets the business requirements, and is cheaper to administer than a hodgepodge of other technologies, pragmatically it just doesn't matter if it doesn't implement IMAP exactly to spec.

I'm not a big fan of MS, but they're just giving the market what it wants here. If you can do better, please do.

Trying to build all those services yourself using open source options, tying them all into an LDAP server, is an amazing pain. Does everyone need all of that? No. But honestly I can't imagine trying to handle the mail, shared mailboxes, messaging, scheduling, booking resources (conference rooms, equipment, etc..) for a Fortune 500 using the other options I'm aware of.

It may be "blather" to you, but it's generally pretty important stuff for a large company.

Sorry, I really would like to agree with you, but there are plenty of companies with IE6+Outlook worker bees that show no signs of dying anytime soon.