Gmail experiences – Going mobile with gmail

Rob at Gotta Be Mobile posted his thoughts on using Gmail for a complete email solution.

Gmail is a wonderful email platform but in my last post you will see that I am not a complete fan. For the ultimate mobility solution Gmail is not the answer and Rob shows why this is the case.

A few excerpts:

Having web-based access to my email from any computer that I’m working on at the moment was a huge plus. However, I quickly missed the tight integration of calendar, tasks, contacts, and email, and syncing all of that to a PDA / Smart Phone.

Web based is nice but what about when you have no access? Yes were are getting to a day when no access will be something we tell our grandkids about, but there are lots of times when you don’t have access.

A third aspect?I struggled with was contacts. GMail does a good job of importing contacts and calendar data from Outlook, and automatically creating contacts for all the incoming mail, but keeping that data in sync with a PDA was troublesome and in the case of contacts, non-existant.

Syncronization is KEY to mobility.

After working with the above solutions for a week, I went back to Outlook and immediately fell right back in to the swing of things. The biggest thing lacking in using a Google based solution was a lack of integration between the various Google and third party applications that exist to help tie things together.

Integration is the key to having the best email, contacts, calendar, task solution.

Steve at Origamiportal.com comments on why it didn’t work for Rob but it worked for himself. He has some very valid points on this subject.

What do you use?Loren Nason
Future of Real Estate Technology