Gmail vs Outlook | What Google needs to do to truly become a competitor to outlook

Gmail has been the email client of choice for an increasing number of people for sometime now and there is no doubt that it is a very effective email client.  However when we place Gmail against other email clients, in particular Outlook, while it stacks up very well as an email client it fall behind in terms of being anything other than this.  One of the great strengths of Outlook is that it is not just simply an email client, it is in fact much more than that. As I have pointed out in previous posts Outlook is in fact a a fully fledged time and workload management system, with the ability to work quite well as an information manager as well.  So what would Google have to do with its flagship non-search product, Gmail in order to allow it to compete with Outlook.

TASKS

The recent inclusion of tasks is a very solid move in the right direction to bring  Gmail closer to Outlook in terms of time and workload management.  They need however a fairly healthy injection of added functionality in order to become truly functional.  The ability to quickly add an email into into the task list (whether in it is in the main mailbox or archived) is nice.  it is once the email gets there that there needs to be some significant improvements.  While there is the ability to be able to put a due date on the task that has been created, there is no ability to put a start date in, something that is incredibly useful in terms of time and workload management.  Also the inability to be able to sort your task list by either of these, is a significant problem.  There does not seem to be the ability to connect more that one email to the same task, so to things can not be grouped under a single task, nor is there the ability to utilise categories or groups to be able to group multiple tasks under a single heading.  The other thing that lets Gmail tasks down is the inability to be able to access a range of different view of your task list.  Now I understand that Gmail tasks is still part of Labs and therefore still in development, without the inclusion of these sorts of functionalities it really is nothing more than just a list.

CALENDAR

One of the real places where Outlook outshines Gmail is that the Calendar is part of the package, not a completely different program altogether.  For Gmail to truly be a competitor to Outlook there needs to be significant links between the email client and the calendar.  Yes, you can see the calendar in the Gmail side bar and this is useful,  but you cant send emails to the calendar to turn them into a meeting.  There is also no ability to send a meeting request which automatically inserts it into your calendar and the calendars of others as well.  Now I do understand that there are a number of programs out there that enable users to be able to simulate to Outlook experience to a extent.  The problem with this is that this is not a standard Google product it is a third party application and while useful unless it is a part of the Google stable of products then it is not likely to be something that gets wide spread usage, and of course to be really thought of as a competitor to Outlook, then  it needs to be a Google product.

There are a number of other areas where Gmail lags behind Outlook, such as information management via contacts, however, if Google and Gmail where to improve the functionality of tasks and the linkages between the Calendar, email and tasks were to be strengthened significantly then Gmail would begin to be a real competitor to Outlook in terms of time and workload management.  If however they don’t, then Gmail, will remain nothing more than just an email platform,  albeit a useful one.

For more ways to utilise Outlook as a time and workload management tool contact Priority Management.

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