Microsofts product works fine, but works finest if you are willing to live in their mail client. Outlook-on-steroids is good if you like more icons and frobs and whistles than you can point a stick at. If you like Mail.app or any third party client, bear in mind that IMAP and POP are poor cousins, and the implementation of MAPI by hands other than Redmond is .. well its different. So, you
can make third party mail work, and make bits of calendar work, but .. in the end, you will be assimilated.
Google just works. Its fine. They know everything about you anyway so its an entirely rational choice. But, you do get driven to using their web app model. Some people love it. I love it. I know others hate it.