Is the Outlook bar still a reasonable container for a list of lists?

(This assumes that it ever was, so please feel free to comment if you disagree!)

For years, our development team have designed data-centric desktop applications where the main window has an Outlook bar on the left, and clicking one of the tabs shows the associated list in the rest of the window...

Double-clicking an item (or single-clicking and then clicking the Edit button) would open a child window with details for the customer, product, etc.

We're just about to start a new application, and it made me wonder if we are behind the times. UIs have changed a lot over the years, and maybe people don't do it this way any more.

As we have a licence for their controls, I had a look at Telerik's demo applications, and they seem to be variations on the same theme, using treeviews and the like on the left...

Anyone any comments? Do I carry on doing pretty much the same, or is there a more modern way to do it?

Thanks