Difference between Apple Mail & Entourage

Mail.app comes with the Mac OS. It's a standard e-mail client that handles POP and IMAP protocols (used by Internet service providers) and can send plain or rich-text (HTML) emails. Syncing is handled by Mac's built-in iSync application and it sports the same drag-and-drop features and integration common to all Mac apps (e.g., drag pictures, apointements, attachments etc. in and out of e-mails)

Entourage is a commercial application from Microsoft, inteded to be Outlook for the Mac. It has the same basic features of Mail.app, but also includes support for Microsoft Exchange e-mail (which is proprietary). Entourage also includes support for Microsoft Exchange's proprietary calendaring and scheduling. The draw-back to entourage are that: it doesn't sync with anything without additional 3rd party software, it's a PowerPC application (requires 4x as much memory and runs slower in Intel Macs' emulation mode), and it has many of the flaws (like automatically downloading images) that Microsoft's Outlook does or did.

Generally speaking, Entourage is a huge waste of space and money unless you have to access a Microsoft Exchange server. In that case, it's your only option.

Let me first of all say that I prefer Apple Mail for its simplicity and unified inbox. But I also use Entourage. Here are a few of my observations:

1. Entourage does include conduits for Palm that work with both the Palm software and Missing Sync.
2. The current versions of Entourage syncs with Address Book and iCal, and has a .mac sync also for Notes. So, instead of using the supplied Palm sync conduits, with Missing Sync I let Entourage sync against the Apple sync system, which then syncs to Palm.
3. Images do not download automatically in the latest version.
4. It has Apple feature support such as AppleScript and Spotlight search.
5. Large mailboxes are stable - they are still not that way in Apple Mail.
6. Exchange Server access is more robust.
7. I have not seen the system load you mention, but I run on large memory systems (2Gb and 4GB.)
8. The interface and behavior is more customizable - I mean sounds, spell checking, and most importantly, when and how to send for each account under particular circumstances. This allows you to queue mail for sending, and then execute it once you are sure, you are not going to change your mind. There are also ways to group mail in the listing pane similar to Outlook. etc.
8. Functionality includes a News Reader integrated with experience, mailing lists manager etc.

The most important aspect is that Entourage takes an integrated producticity approach linking address book, calendar, and communications in one environment. This includes grouping items by project. By necessity, it is more complex this way. Apple offers simplicity and modularity.

It is clear the Microsoft team tried to achieve the best of both worlds. But in that it is more like Outlook - the proverbial kitchen sink!

My way out is to set up a local imap server to share local folders between both applications, and use them depending on circumstance. All my mail servers are imap plus on exchange, so I have the both views onto the same world.

Hope that helps.

-- Harald