Linux Mint Operating System Free, page-61

"Windows can run all the office suite like Outlook, Linux has Thunderbird which does about 5% of what outlook can."

For starters, Outlook is not an Office Suite.
Thunderbird is fine. It sends email and does what it should. It also works just fine alongside the FREE and high quality Office suites LibreOffice or OpenOffice. Both developed to full maturity and well beyond the needs of most with the help and backing of Oracle. All opensource, no purchase cost EVER required. In places, these packages beat the capabilities of MS Office by a long shot.

Outlook is not 95% more functional by any stretch of the imagination. You are kidding yourself if you think the bells and whistles of commercialisation of services are anything overly useful for the the majority of users out there.

If you want extra functions, get the individual packages as you need them, rather than stuffing them all in the same box so you can justify the next "new release" with a high price tag.

In this day and age of Google Docs, free mature software, etc, why would you ever consider buying an office suite, email manager, or PIM anyway? Bloated glitz and upgrades are not going to help you write a report or email any quicker! Most of the developments in this area in the last 5 years at least have been distractions rather than assistance for productivity.