<p>Business users have got very used to Outlook. The email client for the more than one billion Microsoft Office users on the planet has become second nature. However, some companies are finding that it saves them money and maintenance time to let Google host their email, calendars, and contacts. If you could use Outlook with your Google Apps Mail (really just Gmail), you'd get a preview panel, inbox sorting, rich formatting, right click options, a social connector, and most of the other tools Outlook offers.</p><p>Thankfully, Google Apps Sync for Microsoft Outlook lets you take advantage of most of Outlook's toolsbut only for Outlook 2010 so far. If you run Office 2013, you can still connect to a Gmail account through IMAP, but this will only get you mail; no calendars, tasks, or contacts.</p><p>Using Apps Sync, Gmail emulates a limited version of a Microsoft Exchange Server. You do get most of the important stuff your contacts, calendar events, tasks, and Outlook notes. But some things won't be synced, like drafts, follow-up dates and reminders, rules, signatures, rich-text formatting, delivery receipts, calendar attachments, task reminders, and Journal entries. There's an exhaustive list of what is and isn't synced in this PDF from Google.</p><p>If you can live with those limitations and your company has made the move to Google Apps, then using Outlook with your new communication service is a simple matter of installing and running Apps Sync. It's compatible with Windows 7, Vista, XP, and Outlook 2003, 2007, and 2010. Note that it hasn't been updated for either Windows 8 or Outlook 2013, the version included with Office 365.</p><p><a href="http://www.itproportal.com/2013/02/25/a-guide-to-syncing-outlook-and-google-apps/">Keep reading...</a></p>