I got round that a different way, Jim.
I use Outlook for diary (it does that quite well), and my address book is on it. That syncs to my batphone (and used to sync to the iPaq when I had one). The laptop has the same setup, and the batphone is the common updater device. In fact, 99% of all diary and adress updates go via the phone anyway.
But for e-mail I use Thunderbird. It's so much better (honest!).