Outlook Calendar Meetings

When it comes to discussion about alternatives to MS Outlook, a common argument is the unique calendar and meeting request feature. So far I could understand people as it seemed quite comfortable to me (even although nothing beats the Google Calendar).

After working a lot with the Outlook Calendar (although mostly through the web or thank good, integrated with Lightning in Thunderbird), I can tell you: No, the Outlook Calendar is not so good, as you might think!

BTW: Outlook is not the only software supporting such features any more.

Here are a few things that are super-annoying (and I am talking about the 2010 version - so state-of-the-art version):

• I cannot create an appointment over n hours with one click and drag (this works in Google Calendar and Ligthning for example). I always need to double-click and set the length by adjusting end-time.
• When I accept a meeting request, in the Outlook Web-Access, the appointment is carved in stone - I cannot change it (apart from background color), however,
• in the Outlook 2010 desktop application I can change the meeting details - usually I add relevant informations to a meeting, information that I need exactly for that appointment, like addresses, contact phone numbers, conference call numbers etc. So far so good, problem: When the initiator of the meeting makes changes to the event, mine gets updated without notice and my edits are gone! - This also means that if somebody is ill and I change a foreign appointment, I wipe out their notes either - that's crazy!
• When viewing a shared calendar from another person in web client, the other calendar gets displayed next to mine and not in  an overlapping mode. Do this with 3 and everything gets too narrow to view on a normal laptop display.

Related posts: Outlook 2010 Meeting requests, Thunderbird & the Outlook Global Address book, Popular Ubuntu desktop myths, Maintaining multiple calendars.