Google Apps (free) user trying to use Outlook as a client (is it better to switch over fully)?

[Ricom1]

Alright, I've been using Google Apps as a family organizer for years. The desire to switch over to Windows occured with the initial announcement of the MS Surface. I liked it for school. I then bought a Lumia 822 when it became available and love the phone. I also just downloaded Office 2013 (gotta love those "Home Use Programs"!).

OK, for Google, I use Google Apps (the free version) and both my wife and myself are pretty good with using it. However, for a few reasons, I've started to want to migrate over to using MS products and am having a problem. I do have a custom domain name and I used one of my email addresses as my MS login. When doing it this way, I believe it's called a portal...because it says it's a hotmail account, but it is pretty useless as it doesn't retrieve any information, it just is used as a login feature.

So...my original email is Ricom1@GoogleAppsAccount.com . GoogleAppsAccount.com is a registered domain name (not really, but you get the idea as an example). When I got my WP8 phone, I put in Ricom1@GoogleAppsAccount.com as my email and it setup a hotmail account (or was a portal to this). The hotmail account doesn't have ANY information but is used as a login for my WP8 phone (guy at work called this a "portal"). This email is also used for all of my MS logins (Xbox for example).

And to put another kink in it...my wife's phone is an android and she won't be available for upgrade until November.

So, after all that background, my question is...can I use Outlook 2013 as just a client...most things I see say it only works if I have Android for business (which I don't and which I won't buy).

If I can't just use Outlook 2013 as a client, is it possible to transfer over my "GoogleAppsAccount.com" domain over to outlook.com? I only use GMail, Calendar, and documents in GoogleApps...so everything else that GoogleApps uses isn't required? (if this is possible, will my wife's android phone sync?)

If that's also not possible, is the next only choice to use Office 365 for family? I know that's $8.33/month for a family of 5, which is "doable" but I'd rather not pay if not required. And honestly, I'm a little worried about how my wife's android phone will sync up with Office 365.

And last question, would you just continue to use the internet based gmail until the wife get's a WP8 phone in november?

Sorry for the long email, but I've been fumbling over this for two days now and it seems like every answer turns into a dead-end.

Thank you for any suggestions...I honestly appreciate it.

 

[phirefly]

I know where you are coming from... I have 2 free google apps domains and think about the switch all the time but the price stops me. Office 365 supports full active sync so it will work fine with most high end Androids and will definitly work great with all Microsoft products. Outlook 2013 supports Active sync but only version 14 or higher and from what I read online Google only uses version 12 and since they really don't plan to offer much in the way of supporting Active Sync (google apps only) I don't see them upgrading anytime soon even for the Google Apps customers. Check to see if your wife's Android's mail client support Active Sync. If it does and you don't mind the price, you will be happier with Office 365. For me, a family of 7 will run me $28 per month for Exchange Online only. I don't really use the rest of the Google Apps features and would really need the other features of Office 365 either. What plan did you see that is $8.33 a month for a family of 5 or was that per user? You can just get Exchange online for $4 per user per month or I see the small business version for $6 per user per month. If I could get all 7 of us setup for under $10 per month I'd jump all over it.

 

[Mercule]

Same boat. Been trying to get Microsoft to switch my account name for months, now, so I can just use the Outlook.com interface. There's some issue but I don't understand the Engrish responses I've been getting.