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.)