IBM Lotus has delivered a significant upgrade that existing customers will embrace. Compared with competitors (such as Microsoft's unified communications and collaboration platform), Lotus Notes and Domino 8.0 appear less complicated for IT staff to manage and develop solutions around, providing opportunities for server consolidation while integrating various collaboration capabilities in a rich Web 2.0-style client. Notes and Domino 8.0 also provide important multi-platform support.

This free applications allows you to check multiple email accounts all from the one small screen

If you rely on Gmail, and have built up a large address book, Google Talk lets you integrate text and voice messaging very easily. But if you want much more than that, look elsewhere. However, Google has the knack of improving beta software and coming up with winners, so watch this space.