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Until she got an iPad my mother ran Outlook. It’s all she knew how to operate for a mail program, and she "wasn’t learning something new".

I don’t think she was alone - I’d bet a ridiculous number of $300 netbooks have a $100 Windows OS and $200 MS Office Suite installed on top.

and my mother has been using yahoo mail forever... I still doubt most home users actually use outlook (most home users wouldn't even know how to set it up).

It's very much an enterprise / business thing for the most part.

Strictly speaking, you are probably right. Outlook has often been bundled with the higher tiers of the Microsoft Office suite and omitted from the lower tiers. But Outlook Express and Windows Mail? Certainly there are many home users using them. They've been bundled with Windows or IE for years.

I don't think this distinction affects the grandparent comment's point.

It doesn't matter if it's bundled or not. How would any grandparent know how to set up a mail client?

Most computer illiterate people I know have always used hotmail or yahoo mail (slowly changing to gmail) rather than setting up pop3 or imap access to a mail server....

Seriously?