Although I switched from a PC to a Mac about 4 years ago, I’ve long maintained that Microsoft Office products are superior to most other office software. I tried to go 100% free or low-budget for my word processing, spreadsheets and more, but it’s kind of hard to beat MS Office.

I did, however, manage to learn to live without Microsoft Outlook. Although I missed it, the Mac version just wasn’t the same, so I switched my world to Gmail. But Microsoft’s latest Outlook development may have me rethinking my decision.

Microsoft just released a mobile app for Outlook, and it is a fine, fine thing. Many bloggers, including yours truly, are calling it one of the best email readers out there. Here are a few reasons why:

• Import All Kinds of Emails
  You don’t have to be all in with Microsoft to use the app. Within a few minutes you can see emails from Gmail, Yahoo and more.
• See What You Need to
  You can either see all of your email at once or push the Focus button to see just emails from contacts or conversations you’re involved with.
• Triage Your Email
  Like many of the latest email apps, Microsoft lets you swipe right and left to perform quick actions with your emails to get through your inbox quickly.
• See Your Calendar (my favorite feature)
  Here’s where MS Outlook shines — instead of having to switch from your email app to your calendar app, Outlook gives you the big picture at once with a tab that holds your calendar. I’m not sure any other email app I’ve seen has this feature.
• Attach Anything
  The Outlook app does an outstanding job with attachments. You can view incoming attachments right from your screen. And when you connect your cloud storage systems (Dropbox, OneDrive, etc), you can dive into your files to attach anything.

As wonderful as this app is, it won’t work for my day-to-day emailing, only because the Gmail connection brings in all my different email addresses but doesn’t let me send from the multitude of accounts I have set up with Google. Oh well. Everything else is outstanding, and if you have a fairly simple email infrastructure, give Microsoft Outlook a try.

Oh wait… did I mention it’s free?