We’re kicking off another blog series — this one’s on web apps, or applications that you run inside a web browser, like Firefox or Chrome, rather than as a standalone application. We’re focusing on ways that web apps can act as replacements for separate apps, in order to save you money, time, and most importantly, performance! Today we take a look at some smart alternatives to MS Outlook for handing emails!

WEB APPS #2:
THE SMART ALTERNATIVES TO MS OUTLOOK

At work, it’s likely you use Microsoft Outlook to handle e-mail. If you’ve got an old machine, and there are a ton of old machines out there in the business world, Microsoft Outlook can eat up a ton of your computer’s processor! I had a job once where you couldn’t have Outlook open and something else at the same time, or the PC would slow to a crawl. There’s got to be another way, even for business users.

If you’re on an old, slow behemoth of a business machine, or if you’re on a bare bones laptop provided by work, then webmail, such as Gmail, will much less taxing on your PC than Outlook.

The version of Gmail included with Google Apps for Business is one solution for people who have small to medium-sized businesses. It’s $50 per user and gives each person 25 GB of storage. It works well with Outlook and BlackBerry for those establishments that want to do a combination of the three.

Of course, if you’re a small enough operation, say, a new business with limited funds, then a set of free Gmail accounts works nearly as well. Free Gmail is designed for personal users and doesn’t include the business features than the Google Apps for Business version does.

(If you can’t convince your bosses to switch to Google Apps instead of Outlook, consider setting up your smartphone with your company’s e-mail. I knew an IT guy who did all his work e-mail from his BlackBerry, and used Outlook rarely, if at all.)

If you use work Outlook for other things, like calendars, scheduling meetings, e-mail groups, spam filtering, and stuff like that, well, Gmail does all that stuff too. Give it a try!