I honestly think that I'll eventually leave google once they start REQUIRING me google+, which it seems very likely looking at the pace they've been kind of blackmailing gmail users into becoming g+ users. They didn't do the Play store thing to "solve" the spammer issue (seriously? Is anyone really believing that sorry explanation?). What I've found personally is that zoho offers some very good free products. Their email client doesn't suck, I haven't used them much but it's one of the best options out there (I started to "field" google alternatives when they did the Play store thing because it was so out of line and proved the extent of their data hungry ways).