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Desktop PIM?

Chris, are you looking for a PIM like daylite from MarketCircle?
http://www.marketcircle.com

Time to make that switch Chris.

What he said?

I really don't understand something...

As a preface, let me just say that I am a Mac fan like the next guy on this site.

But I don't understand how a huge company like Micro$oft, one of the largest tech. companies out there, can fall from grace as they have.

Don't they have access to really smart people? Can't they find some brilliant young techs to clean up their mess?

Look, I'm sure Micro$oft started out on the wrong track to begin with (and that's why they are in the mess that they are), but is the problem SO bad that they cannot find quality people to clean it up? They certainly have enough money to throw at it, right?

I just see Apple learning from Micro$oft's mistakes, and turning around and doing "it" right. Which is great for me. But I find it really hard to believe that the people at Micro$oft cannot fix their own problems.

They certainly have the resources to do so. What, does Apple hire all the smart and intuitive people...and Microsoft hire all the B students?

MDN, there was never a version of Windoze that wasn't "disappointing, schizophrenic, disordered, inconsistent, and sad?". I think you know that. It's just that everyone on the Dark side was hoping their 5 years of waiting were not in vain.

Also, what's wrong with MS Entourage. I run a rather robust business (on Wall Street nonetheless) and Entourage handles the job as good if not better than Outlook.

This guy should just Get A Mac right now.

Hmmm, Address Book, iCal and Mall.app and their seamless integration seem to work fine for me. Synchronize with my Sony Ericsson s710a, .mac etc. I wish for better Outlook integration, but I get that almost to what I need with GroupCal. What exists on Windows PIM that I am not able to get from my Mac? I do not ask that question sarcastically. Seriously, what is missing?

I told ya not to be stupid, ya moron!

Get a Mac.

My understanding of RC in relation to software is that it stands for Release Candidate. Based on the name I would assume that it is supposed to mean that should no further bugs or problems be found in final testing then the product is ready for release without further changes. Now I am of course aware that even apple will no doubt be continually working on stuff to tweak it, optimize it and on so on but I see absolutely no way that Vista (even by Microsoft's standards) is ready without a lot more work.

By PIM he means Outlook, AKA Entourage for Office X. Why are people so "Stockholmed" by Outlook? Because every other office drone in the world uses this for 90% of all office drone work: email, tasks, appointments, etc. Entourage works just like Outlook. Not sure why he hasn't switched already.

MDN word: WORK- what I am not doing right now.

The paradigm for people using M$ OS is that it is supposed to be difficult, it is supposed to take a lot of time to update virus software, all these things are the nature of the beast and they have become accustomed to it.

There is no alternative for them because the M$ world as they know it is the only world that exists for them. They are drooling just waiting for the release of Wispa. They will accept it as is, with all the glitches and headaches because they have been told over and over again, for the past 25 years that computers are not easy and this shit just happens!

Many of us on this site have said it before that the average joe out there knows nothing but M$ Windoze. Nothing else, finish, stop.

It will take a lot of publicity and money to change that paradigm.

Good luck because that will be one of the biggest changes in the history of mankind to achieve. It would be easier to go to the Moon by yourself or get a responsible answer on Psychiatry from Tom!

Leo

I think better integration with outlook offices would be a good thing, at least make it easier/more obvious how to set up and run a Mac to work in this invironment.... that being said, this seems to be an obvious solution...

"This isn't a virtual machine a la Parallels or VMware for Mac, this is the real deal: CodeWeavers released the beta of CrossOver Mac, a WINE environment port to OS X that allows you to run Windows apps without actually running Windows. "

I believe Outlook and the assiated apps all work with CrossOver Mac! =)

Go AAPL!!! Windows is going to burn baby burrrn!!

Apple and Mac OS X will take over the world, woohoo GO AAPL GO!

There was once a time, say '89 to '92 when the customer was important to Microsoft.

But since then and all that mattered to it was itself. Too wealthy. Too smug. Too arrogant. Too self centred.

And it's just too late to change that now. It's history has been written.

So, look forward to seeing a slow agonising death with Windows fanboy rats up against the wall, spitting venom.






Yaaaahhoooooooooooooo!!!!!

Did everyone catch that great graphic at the top of Thurrott's page?

http://www.winsupersite.com/images/showcase/winvista_rc1_worst_promo.jpg

Even a blind pig finds a truffle now and then!

PIM- Personal Information Manager. I agree what part of your personal information management would prevent you using a Mac? Lazyness perhaps.

Hmm, I'm not sure what is holding him back either. If he doesn't like the combo of Apple's Address Book, iCal and Mail, he could always use Microsoft Entourage 2004. And failing that, there is always Parallels Desktop and Boot Camp available if he has Windows software that he just can't bring himself to part with. There is really no excuse to not own a Mac anymore, unless you only play games and do nothing else with a PC.

Apple does have a really great PIM - It's called a Palm

Ok so the company sold it a few years ago - it's still a really great PIM

So when does Pirillo switch I want to be there to watch?

buy 10,000 apple shares right now at 71.02 and sell it at $72.15 TODAY.

I think Microsoft's fundamental problem is derived from the top decision makers being either über-geeks or sales-vultures. There doesn't seem to be anyone with authority that truly cares about the end-user and their experience with the software.

With so much time, money and programming talent being seemingly wasted at Microsoft, there must be some tremendous force at the top making seriously bad decisions. Just like the current US administration, you know that some over-riding power of a minute few are imposing their own preferences, however contrary to both popular and logical conclusions, refusing to utilize ANY of their vast available human resources, and imposing their own selfish goals with no regard for the millions of people their decisions affect.

To change things in the American society would require the people to have the collective balls to regain control of their own government, but that is as likely to happen as the corporate-controlled government is to crucify one of their own.

The USA and Microsoft BOTH need to be torn down to their original roots and reconstructed from scratch.

What's that quote..."Insanity is defined as doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results." ...?

As long as we keep using and buying the same software, or using the same electoral/polital party system, we will continue with the same results. Don't whine unless you are willing to change your OS and your government!

Release Candidate? Nope. Raging Crapstorm. Your umbrellas are useless.


This just in. A sneak peak at Ballmer's INNOVATIONS! list:

http://thumb3.shutterstock.com/photos4/thumb_small/102/102,1144048109,1.jpg


He's been holed up in his office squatting on a pile of chair shards for months working on this list for the future of technology. Michael Dell got very excited.

Da Vinci...

You are right on the money. My experience with PC drones is that....they don't KNOW any better. This is the slop they are used to, this is what they expect. Cripes, many have no idea that Office even exists on the Mac. I was treally stunned the other day when someone was surprised to hear that iPod was made by Apple. Given all the print and TV ads, I was too stunned to even comment.

Money....lots and lots of money is needed to overcome this level of ignorance. The TV commercials have to change. I like the current ads from a humor point of view but they are useless. They wiill not be doing much to convert people. Get more serious. Show the damn interface Steve.

I think there must be a reason why the UI us so backward, with everything in the wrong place, and similar options and preferences in totally different places.

Maybe if MS copy OS X too much they will get sued over the UI? So they choose to make it so "schizophrenic"

Yes, Palm.
I have also used NOW UP TO DATE AND CONTACT.

Back in the day, my favorite PIM was Rae for Assist.
It came on my Performa, and was actually more than decent.
One of the first object-oriented.

ical, currently, SUCKS (lack of integration w/ Mail and address book).
Clunky, too. I think the guy has a point. I understand where he's coming from.

In all fairness, many people simply pay attention to other things. Tech, for most people is a nuisance, so they've built lives that minimize tech usage. However, younger people embrace tech, and they're moving to Apple very quickly in some areas, it seems.

It will take some advertising money, but I think it's really a matter of time. As more Macs get out there, their exposure grows. And if Apple keeps playing its cards well and new iPods are as sweet as people hope they are, our lil' company is gonna' e'splode!

MDN "law," as in M$ fought the law and M$ won.

Does he need POM too? PIM POM...
Where is my iPhone? I need iPhone now!

R just nailed it.

If I bought 10,000 shares of Apple today at $71.20, I'm spending $710,200. How many people do YOU know that can just pony up that kind of coin? No wonder people hate the rich.

There are standalone PIMs... think Palm Desktop (Claris Organizer), Entourage, Now Up-to-Date, etc. ... and there are networkable/shareable PIMs, like Outlook. I think THAT is what the writer means. Lots of businesses use Outlook as the backbone of day to day office computing and without that kind of functionality, it becomes difficult to make a complete switch.

Like it or not, and Stockholm Syndrome aside, he does have a point. And whether the point is real or imagined, it's still there. It's the same thing we are all witnessing with the PPC to Intel processor switch. Somehow, Macs are suddenly a real choice, the are suddenly real, simply because they now use Intel processors, even though little else has changed for Mac OS X or the Macintosh platform.

As others have noted, Windows has become a state of mind... nothing else exists or is even possible. They fear change because they see and can comprehend no other state of being but Windows.

Poor Bastards!

Okay, silly me... Now Up-to-Date IS networkable.

ACT (Symantec) is another one, and for business, is FAR SUPERIOR to NOW.

Oops I forgot.
No more ACT for Mac.

But another great one, that I WISH was OSX compatabile- Lotus Notes.
Real time networkable.

Does Entourage connect to Exchange or Domino?

Chris it's time to switch, PIM or no PIM. OSX is simply a better operating system and you have already admitted that.

First: I anticipate additional integration in Leopard that will bring iCal, Address Book and Mail closer to what he's looking for as a PIM.

Second: he wasn't disappointed by the earlier Betas ... they were just Betas! But, this is a Release Candidate. THIS should have all the major screw-ups cleared away. You look at the Betas and notice that it doesn't look 'unified' so someone who GAF picks one look/style and tells everybody to toe the line. It may well be too late to fix it now, it wasn't earlier. Apparently anybody with any clout is in DILLIGAF mode - and/or is clueless regarding GUI design. Most likely 'and'.

IF after all Apple has done to try to remove barriers for Windows users to switch, these people insist on being stubborn, then they deserve this stinkin pile of manure they are about to get served.

Suck it Stockholm Syndrome boys.

MW 'truth'

That's news to me. Most people who've used RC1 is pretty impressed by it - myself included. It's certainly no Release Candidate, IMO, but it's good. (One reviewer even said now they are starting to see the OS's potential.) It seems you all went straight for the handful of bad reviews instead of mentioning the many good ones.

I guess, since I only have to manage myself, with no inter-office/business scheduling, iCal and Mail work just fine for me. It's kind of hard to understand everyone else's reliance and obsession with PIMs. But that's just me. Prior to OS X Apple didn't do anything at all, but they seem to be making both programs incrementally better, each release. Perhaps one day they will equal Entourage in the respects that people expect and want; at least I hope they will. I may not need it, but apparently others do, and it would be a shame for that to be the reason they don't switch.

lets be real...outlook is awful.

UK Jim, yes, Entourage connects to Exchange. Does pretty well, though the lack of complete functional integration [Outlook polling, true Microsoft Project capability] leads one to Parallels [in my case] or Boot Camp on occasion.

Entourage is not bad, though I still prefer Mail for my personal mail and Entourage still suffers from occasional db integrity problems when its db gets large.

If I bought 10,000 shares of Apple today at $71.20, I'm spending $710,200. How many people do YOU know that can just pony up that kind of coin?

Millions of Nigerians. Do what they do, and send emails to people so stupid they don't know that Apple makes the iPod. You'll be rich beyond the dreams of avarice.

I have to say: When Vista comes out, sadly no more switchers will come.

That OS, apart from being an almost complete copy of OS X, is at least 50 times better than XP, so no more!

john - Chris it's time to switch, PIM or no PIM. OSX is simply a better operating system and you have already admitted that.

Actually Chris has been covering the Mac since before OSX was a public beta. He bought a Mac laptop 5 or 6 years ago and used it in his Lockergnome articles. Lockergnome even runs (ran) a Mac newsletter and forums. The one thing he hasn't done is drink the Kool aid, he still looks at both platforms objectively.

Err MLM? Which planet did you say you were from?

Vista is going to be a pile of sh*t forever. If it isn't half decent now, then 3 years won't fix it. People will have moved on by then.

DW - No good reviews in this one, but Thorrot said good things about it and it was repeated here a week or so ago. Most PC users will be happy with Vista because they're happy with Windows. The Stockholm Syndrome is the closest I can come to an explanation.

Microsoft's problem is its corporate culture, and that is next to impossible to change without a wholesale cleansing of the upper ranks. Microsoft's culture has never been about innovation, despite what they might tell you. Microsoft's S.O.P. is to wait for someone else to innovate, copy the innovation, out-market and out-price the original innovator, then lock the customers in.

This goes right back to their earliest origins. Microsoft's very first product was Microsoft BASIC, a version of the popular public-domain language. They didn't invent it, but they knew how to market it to business. They also made proprietary changes to their BASIC, ensuring that once a business had critical applications written in this language, they could not easily switch to a competitor's version.

Microsoft now finds itself in a situation where their usual bag of tricks is failing them, where copying and marketing isn't enough. They have to innovate. And they don't know how to innovate.

Windows' time is over. It will take decades to go away, but its marketshare has peaked. It's all downhill from here. If Microsoft doesn't completely reinvent itself, it faces a long, slow slide into irrelevancy.

"But another great one, that I WISH was OSX compatabile- Lotus Notes."

It is.

Uh, the US has been around long before Microsoft and will doubtless outlive it. Microsoft's problems are not the U.S's writ large. Microsoft's problems are those typical of any big company that is a victim of its own success. Think about it. Once you lose your hunger, you get fat and lazy and then you're just resting on your laurels. Companies since the beginning of the Industrial Age have made the same mistakes.

Microsoft is failing not because of the lack of smart people, but rather institutional inertia. Come on, guys. How many of you work at large companies? Apparently not many. If you did, you'd recognize just how helpless most of the smart people are in the organization. They have to go through this channel, talk to these people, then push it up the chain, then convince those people, and on and on. The organizational structure of most businesses simply stifles innovation and prevents quick action -- the two things necessary for a company to keep succeeding.

LordRobin,

Its market share has peaked?

Of course it's peaked; they have 95% of the market. The only way they could grow is if ALL other OSes just vanished.

The sad thing is that the day this goes gold and ships it will immediately have the second highest market share, pushing OS X and all flavors of Linux down a market share ranking notch.

And if it’s good enough it’ll be number one in a couple years or so. PC’s are still cheaper. Even if the Dull workstation is a little more than the MacPro. Most people aren’t buying $3000.00 computers, they are buying $300.00 ones.

As I’ve stated before; they want a monitor, keyboard, mouse, more RAM, printer, years supply of ink, a ream of paper and a Hawaiian cruise with a coupon for a trip to the Moon base when it opens. Plus they can play Doom a year and a half before we can. And sad but true…they get it. The mini just can’t compete with these people in its lone shoe box for $599.

BustingTheSkullsOfIdiots,

How is M$ failing? They have 95% market saturation, and that doesn’t look likely to change anytime soon. Regardless of what we may think or hope.

They own enterprise, and that’s not going to change very soon.

They own Government agencies, and if that changes it will be slow and probably go to Linux or some other Open Source as the point of changing would be to get out of the grips of a single source supplier. Not jump to an even more restricted hardware-software single source.

They own the consumer market. This space “could” go to Apple. But it will be a long slow haul of years. Most people in this space, techies not included, don’t know what operating system they’re using or even what one is. These are people that boot a computer every single day of their life. And they don’t know if an Apple or Windows logo comes on at start up.

They are clueless and are no more impacted by Vista and its delays than you or I am. But they sure as shit are looking for deals like the one I mentioned in my response to LordRobin above.

I sure wish my company was failing like that.