We have been using Google’s gmail service since 2006, so we have always hated the hideous Microsoft Outlook (see here, for example) by comparison. Last week, my home institution switched over to “Microsoft Surface,” an even more complicated and cumbersome operating system than the previous versions of Microsoft. By way of example, it used to take me one simple step to access my university email account. Now, it takes four separate steps (see below) to log in. Seriously?
Step 1
Step 2
Step 3
Step 4
prior probability 
The future business-model for software, like it or not, will be subscription-based and ad-serving. The idea of us owning the copies of our operating systems, as if we bought a book and put it on our bookshelves, is fast fading. Let’s face it, we grew up in the Ernie Kovacs era of software.
Yes, I agree that Microsoft is moving in that direction, by Google products are all free (nominally “free” since Google is profiting off our data).
The only reason I use Microsoft is because I hate Apple products even more. Have you tried the open source email client Thunderbird? I think’s its much better than Outlook.
Thanks for the pointer. I will check it out.