[Mosov]

With the Google/Microsoft war, how will people who are reliant on Gmail and googledocs, but using windows phone be affected? Currently my main mail on my WP is gmail, and it seems to work fine for the moment, but how will that change in the future? It seems that in order to get the best of WP you need to be fully emersed in the Microsoft ecosystem.

[ohgood]

With the Google/Microsoft war, how will people who are reliant on Gmail and googledocs, but using windows phone be affected? Currently my main mail on my WP is gmail, and it seems to work fine for the moment, but how will that change in the future? It seems that in order to get the best of WP you need to be fully emersed in the Microsoft ecosystem.

Guess you could change the user agent, and use the browser. Folks have used that for lots of restrictive websites.

I kinda look at the os as just what's running on a device, a dumb terminal that connects to other very smart and heavy machines. If the dt is windows, or whoevers os, there is still plenty to be accessed via a web browser.

Folks use hotmail (or live, whatever mail is called this week) on macs, linux, bsd, win32, and all sorts of machines. The same for gmail, or (gasp/choke) an ISPs services.

what benefit does the user gain by using one mail service vs another ? I don't see one.

[inteller]

your last statement applies to any phone from any ecosystem. however, Microsoft isn't willfully breaking its ecosystem interoperability with others like Google. You need to consider whether getting your services from an advertising company vs a software company is in your best interests. It certainly wasn't in mine which is why I dumped Google cold turkey.

[Mosov]

yeah but the gmail on IE is very crummy. Much better to use the mail app that WP already has. It's been working fine, but I'm afraid in the near future, it won't work anymore. Which would be disaster, since not being able to properly use your mail with your smartphone is a great detriment.

[Mosov]

your last statement applies to any phone from any ecosystem. however, Microsoft isn't willfully breaking its ecosystem interoperability with others like Google. You need to consider whether getting your services from an advertising company vs a software company is in your best interests. It certainly wasn't in mine which is why I dumped Google cold turkey.

I can't dump Google cold turkey, because I rely on it for several things (e.g. Google Docs) which is often used during my projects. I also like gmail and want to stick with it and I also sync with google chrome/google maps. For microsoft I do use skydrive and word though. So I'm all over the place, but I don't want to switch everything to microsoft because it doesn't suit my needs. So given this microsoft/windows war I'm stuck in the middle :/

[inteller]

i really don't see how Google Docs can be better than Office on Skydrive. One give you Office. The other is an imitator.

[Mosov]

i really don't see how Google Docs can be better than Office on Skydrive. One give you Office. The other is an imitator.

I use office more often than google docs. I just use google docs for collabrative projects. It's more convenient. But the cloud is more important for the google docs for this reason.

[dainla]

With the Google/Microsoft war, how will people who are reliant on Gmail and googledocs, but using windows phone be affected? Currently my main mail on my WP is gmail, and it seems to work fine for the moment, but how will that change in the future? It seems that in order to get the best of WP you need to be fully emersed in the Microsoft ecosystem.

I've had Gmail for 7 years. Now will be leaving gmail. Even if their fight with WP was legitimate, the problem is that Google is willing to do what they are doing. They have completely destroyed my confidence in them as company, which means I will be moving on. NICE JOB< GOOGLE

[Bilal_Fakih]

Guys!!! You dont have to shut your gmail account or leave gmail because maybe in the future WP cant sync to it. The solution is to forward all your gmail emails to your MS account! I did that with my iPhone, i forwarded all my MS emails to gmail and now when i got my Lumia 920, i forward all my gmail emails to my MS account! So its not a big deal

[inteller]

my gmail account wasn't all that important but what was more important was not allowing a company with dubious business practices to make money off of me by sifting through my emails and throwing ads at me or to my recipients.

[rdubmu]

You can use SkyDrive to share documents. Office is light years ahead of google docs. My school uses google apps, yet they require us to have office.
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[jedah]

Guys!!! You dont have to shut your gmail account or leave gmail because maybe in the future WP cant sync to it. The solution is to forward all your gmail emails to your MS account! I did that with my iPhone, i forwarded all my MS emails to gmail and now when i got my Lumia 920, i forward all my gmail emails to my MS account! So its not a big deal

Not a bad solution. When you delete an email forwarded from gmail in your outlook/MS account, does it show up as deleted when you log back into gmail on your desktop browser?

[Stephen Vogel]

Slowly weaning myself off Google services. I was quite heavily into them for my business for a while but over time became a little unhappy with the appearance of the services as opposed to say the functionality and now have everything with MS except my business email address which is still handled under google apps. If Google dropped functionality with Win Phone that would be a huge pain but as I own the domain name I guess I could change that over to be handled by MS. Not sure exactly how I would do that but I am sure it's possible so will cross that bridge when I come to it.
To be honest I don't mind paying for a reliable, secure service with a slick interface if it came to that - like one other poster said, would you rather you account be handled by a software co or an advertising co.

[Mosov]

Don't know what all the hostility towards Google is for. Just use the best of each company to maximize your user experience. Not company is perfect. Google is doing some amazing stuff like it or not, and some of their products are the best on the market. Each company has its strengths and weaknesses.

[Stephen Vogel]

Don't know what all the hostility towards Google is for. Just use the best of each company to maximize your user experience. Not company is perfect. Google is doing some amazing stuff like it or not, and some of their products are the best on the market. Each company has its strengths and weaknesses.

I wouldn't say I am hostile towards Google either. They do not seem to be going out of their way to be helpful to Windows Phone users of late which I guess has got a few people upset. I certainly don't buy into the Google = Evil Empire theory just yet but it will be interesting to see how far they are willing to push things in the stand off with Microsoft that seems to be developing.

[SuperJMN]

I personally moved from Gmail and every other Google service. As other users say, they broke my confidence. It was the same day Google restricted the freedom to choose.

Good bye, Google.
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[Bilal_Fakih]

Not a bad solution. When you delete an email forwarded from gmail in your outlook/MS account, does it show up as deleted when you log back into gmail on your desktop browser?

When you forward your Gmail to MS mail, Gmail will send a copy of that mail to MS account. So if you open or delete your forwarded email, nothing will happen to the original email that is sent to Gmail. So if you open your gmail account, it will show you that you have 1 email not read.

[stueyboy]

I am with several others in this thread - gradually closing off my access to google due to their practices, Mind you what do you expect when it's free. I remember reading somewhere that if your not paying for a service then you are the product so you shouldn't be surprised when google start selling your info to customers. If only Bing maps was as good as google maps though....

[wbdillworth]

It seems that in order to get the best of WP you need to be fully emersed in the Microsoft ecosystem.

I still have a gmail address. But, I created a new live.com email address and changed everything to it. Every email that I could/can change from Google, I did/do. The only thing I use in Google is YouTube.

I'm going to have to second the comments on SkyDrive and Office. I find it hard to believe Google docs is offering you services, that can't be replaced with SD and Office.

[Laura Knotek]

I am with several others in this thread - gradually closing off my access to google due to their practices, Mind you what do you expect when it's free. I remember reading somewhere that if your not paying for a service then you are the product so you shouldn't be surprised when google start selling your info to customers. If only Bing maps was as good as google maps though....

I'm doing the same thing. In two weeks, I'll delete my Google account.

I'll still be able to use Google Maps, Search, or anything that doesn't require logging in, so it's not a big deal for me. There is nothing I use that requires a Google account.

[tekhna]

Pick your poison. Every company sucks, every company abuses and mines your data to sell to advertisers (don't think for a moment Microsoft isn't doing it too, they are, and it's well documented), every company tries to lock you into their ecosystem, every company has fanboys that think their company is the best and all the others are evil and suck.
Meh.

[anilraj]

While, it is really easy to move from GMail to Outlook.com mail service, I don't think that should be the strategy from Microsoft.

In GMail you can enable POP, and go to Outlook.com and settings enable to read from GMail.
It works fine.
My Outlook.com has transferred all my GMails (from 2004) to my Outlook.com.
All the new GMails appear in the Outlook.com.

In you "From Address", it will say "Sent only behalf of your@gmail.com".
Not a bad solution.

Additionally, you can create an Outlook.com mail alias also.
And you can use any mail id interchangeably.

But, it is good solution for everyone out there.
People love gmail.
So, if you asking them to move from GMail to Outlook for Window Phone, it is going to fail.

I am sure, MS is aware of it.
And they will have a solution (like Apple).

So, you folks who don't want to use Outook.com you don't have to worry.

[JigShah]

There is always the non-free option. Hosted Exchange accounts cost $4/mailbox/month. You can use the proper Outlook Web App instead of the outlook.com inbox and hotmail calendar combo. I am very close to this, as I am getting tired of waiting for the hotmail calendar to be replaced.

[tgp]

i really don't see how Google Docs can be better than Office on Skydrive. One give you Office. The other is an imitator.

Technically true, but Google Doc's collaboration works better than Skydrive's.

[mdameron]

I'm doing the same thing. In two weeks, I'll delete my Google account.

I'll still be able to use Google Maps, Search, or anything that doesn't require logging in, so it's not a big deal for me. There is nothing I use that requires a Google account.

Freeloader