>> In fairness, I'm not aware of anything else that does what Outlook and
>> Exchange do.

> What, install viruses?

I've heard Word used to do that a lot. I've never seen it actually 
happen with Outlook though.

> Sorry, haven't used it myself for some time, so I
> have no clue what "special feature" these are supposed to have. lol

I've seen plenty of software that gives you a calendar, to-do list, and 
so on. I've seen software that lets you send email via SMTP, and receive 
it via IMAP or POP3. I've seen server software to go on the other end.

But the combination of Outlook and Exchange does far more than that. 
Exchange stores email (and more) in a central database, with online 
backup and restore features, quotas and so forth. Outlook lets you read 
your email directly off the server. You don't have to "download" it as 
you do with normal email protocols. The server database and the client 
database are kept automatically synchronised, without you having to 
manually micro-manage it. You can send an email to somebody else without 
it ever leaving the server. You can get a list of all the servers on the 
server, and you can email somebody just by typing their real name. You 
can request notifications, so you know when somebody has read the email 
you sent them. You can create shared folders, which receive external 
email and multiple people can access it, see which messages have been 
read, etc. You can do shared calendars. You can design a form, email it 
to a bunch of people, and the server will collate the results. You can 
do email processing rules ON THE SERVER, rather than at your particular 
client.

I haven't seen anything else that can do half this stuff.

-- 
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