Please stop polluting my MacBook with Exchange

Just a few weeks ago I took possession of a shiny black MacBook, which was running like a dream till our IT folks insisted I join the corporate Microsoft Exchange domain and dump Thunderbird for Microsoft Entourage.

Before Entourage was put on the system, it was fast, reliable and gave me exactly what I need from a laptop.

Now, even the simple task of changing between e-mail folders takes up to 30 seconds, which is just crazy. I click on the folder and then ... nothing. No little multi-coloured spinning ball thing, no sign that the MacBook even acknowledged my click.

Then, when it feels quite ready, the folder will change. Obviously by the time it does, I have lost the will to live or moved on to something more interesting instead.

Colleagues have told me that it is not just Entourage that has this problem -- even those using Outlook have the same delay.

Another serious pain in the bum is that, after using Thunderbird for the past year or two, I had the junk e-mail rules and folder organisation set up to work pretty darn well. Now I find my inbox full of junk and I have to spend far too much time dragging good e-mails out of the junk folder -- after of course waiting, and waiting, and waiting for the application to simply open that folder.

It amazes me that I can edit and render videos with ease but reading e-mails is a nightmare.

Why the hell is this stuff called "productivity software"? It should be renamed head-banging, frustration-generating, time-wasting bloatware.

</rant>

One of my friends has managed to set up his system to synchronise Mail and iCal with Entourage, which apparently works very well. I am going to give that a go and will update you on my progress real soon.

However, can anyone out there suggest a better alternative that is IT department-friendly, will help connect to the work Exchange system and leave me with a functional Mac?

Or am I asking too much?