You can definitely buy individual MS Office programs (including Outlook) by themselves. They are just more expensive individually then when you buy one of the Office Suites.
Here is Outlook on Staples.com:
http://www.staples.com/microsoft+out...rosoft+outlook
With a little setup, any email client should be able to allow you to access your gmail account. Here is what Google Support says you need to do to setup your gmail in Thunderbird:
http://support.google.com/mail/bin/a...n&answer=77662
I would say, try Thunderbird. It's free, so if you don't like it, you can still order Outlook.
Microsoft also has Live Mail available for free. I've only used it once but it didn't seem any more or less complicated than any other mail client.
Steve
__________________
"No you fool, we're following orders. We were told to comb the desert so we're combing it."
