Then and now, episode 2

February 6 2008

One of the most high-profile, public discussions of customers migrating away from Lotus Notes has been the saga of Accenture.  In April, 2001, CRN ran a story entitled, "Zollar Challenges Microsoft In Bid To Keep Accenture Business".  By mid-2002, Accenture had announced their migration.  The case studies are on the Microsoft and Avanade websites, though they seem to never mention that Steve Ballmer was on the Accenture Board of Directors at the time the decision was made.  Microsoft also has a 2005 presentation about Accenture's move, which includes this timeline:

Accenture Notes migration timetable

According to that timetable, Accenture had basically sunset Notes applications by January, 2005.

Where are we at today?  Accenture is hiring Notes 6 developers.

Accenture hiring Notes 6 developers, February 2008

Now it's true that Accenture's outsourcing practice has some need for Notes expertise -- they also have a developer job open in that practice now in Orlando, Florida.  But their operations in India were specifically called out as the "remediation" site for the Notes apps -- back in 2005.

It's clear that Notes is not only not gone from the Accenture IT environment, but rather that it is still a key technology.  For example, Jeremy Hansen is featured on their website as a happy Lotus Notes developer in Michigan.  A description of Accenture's Architecture and Infrastructure Services says, in part, that

It also is involved in a variety of personal productivity and team services, including e-mail, Lotus Notes databases, files services, collaboration tools and printing services.
I am thrilled that Lotus Notes is still delivering value to Accenture.  Wouldn't it be great to welcome them back into the community?

Ed Brill Highland Park, IL USA Category:  Lotus  Add/View Comments [51]

Post a Comment

  1. 1  Irv Schor  | 2/6/2008 2:09:56 PM

    In 2000 I had worked for a financial institution and they (political decision) decided to move from Notes/Domino 4.5 to Exchange 2000 as a new CIO came in with whatever we had was wrong mentality (okay, I helped with the migration, but there was a baby on the way and needed my job). The company wasn't huge (1200 users), but relied upon a key Notes application for Sales Force Automation, and another for tracking a financial pipeline. .Net apps were supposed to replace these 2 key items. I just heard they finally retired those apps about a year ago and a huge (huge) bill to port the apps. Ironically, the company that had recently been poised to be buy them out is a Notes shop!

  1. 2  David Gursky  | 2/6/2008 2:58:21 PM

    Physician, heal thyself.

    One job posting in India is supposed to contradict a global effort of a company of tens of thousands of people to move away from Notes/Domino? Sure, it be great if this were a sign of them moving back to Notes, but two positions (two JUNIOR positions) is not that sign.

    Ed, you yourself commented here earlier that you were moving up in IBM and would be hiring two people to work under you, but not two NEW people. Two people from inside of the existing staff.

    Don't get me wrong. I think the platform and technology is great. And when IBM does something that potentially shifts the market share, such as the announcement for support of the iPhone, that's TREMENDOUS news. I'd love to see IBM do waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more to push the envelope of helping business do their jobs faster, stronger, better with Domino.

    THAT will bring companies back into the fold.

  1. 3  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 2/6/2008 3:15:10 PM

    David, why does it matter where my hires come from? If they are net increase in this mission vs. some other IBM mission within this vast $90 billion company, I don't see why that isn't a good sign for the Notes business.

    The fact that Accenture is hiring at all in this area, three years after the supposed Notes sunset date, is all I'm pointing out. The sun didn't go down, period.

  1. 4  Maria Helm http://www.mariahelm.com | 2/6/2008 3:48:05 PM

    I think this is hilarious, and David is obviously missing the point completely. Here MS is calling out Accenture as an example of someone who successfully migrated with Notes end-of-life on Jan 05. But they DIDN'T. MS needs to pick an example from some company that DID complete the migration successfully.

    It's too bad there's no way to publicly mark-up pages on the internet so that when someone sees an example like that on MS's site there's a little note "BTW - this is FUD".

  1. 5  Christer Eklundh http://www.bleedyellow.com/blogs/lotus4life/ | 2/6/2008 3:54:03 PM

    LOL, loved the story Ed :-)

  1. 6  Volker Weber http://vowe.net | 2/6/2008 3:56:23 PM

    Not only Accenture. Even Ray has a Domino server. Press cancel here: { Link } Microsoft must clearly be a Notes shop.

  1. 7  Volker Weber http://vowe.net | 2/6/2008 3:59:01 PM

    Or to put this on a less petty level: You as the WW sales leader for Notes should be able to find out how many Notes seats Accenture has on active maintenance. Let's hear that.

  1. 8  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 2/6/2008 4:05:45 PM

    @7 since IBM sales data is IBM confidential, I can't really answer that. But hypothetically, if Accenture were on active maintenance, do you think I would write a blog entry like this?

  1. 9  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 2/6/2008 4:26:52 PM

    and if Ray wants to upgrade to the latest, I can probably work out a deal for him as well. :-D

  1. 10  Mac Guidera http://www.macguidera.net | 2/6/2008 4:59:21 PM

    Ed, thanks for the Orlando pointer! I'll see if there's a finder's fee ;)

  1. 11  Mark  | 2/6/2008 5:24:16 PM

    I worked as an internal Notes Developer at Accenture (10/1999 to 11/2004), so I was there through most of the Notes-to-MS migration effort. The Exchange/Outlook part was up and running according to that schedule. They were also rolling out the firmwide Sharepoint solution when I left, which was supposed to replace the bulk of all the Notes KM databases. But there were just too many legacy Notes DBs to convert. During the initial audit, the number was ~20k unique LN DBs in the entire firm, excluding mail. Most of those were abandoned, but that still left hundreds of systems to convert. I'm guessing there are still a ton of NSFs that didn't migrate into the Sharepoint system, but still house critical data and/or workflow.

  1. 12  Keith Brooks http://lotustech.blogspot.com | 2/6/2008 6:34:51 PM

    Could Accentures problems also be traced back to their decision to go from Domino to Exchange?

    Conspiracy theorists out there want to know.

    Home Depot, Accenture, Burger King, you can pin the tail on a bunch of them in some way shape or form.

  1. 13  Mike Robinson http://www.invcs.com | 2/6/2008 6:43:00 PM

    @2, I think I understand- you may be thinking of the MS Exchange resource paradigm of 4 resources to everyone Exchange Server (1 exchange, 1 AD, 1 DNS, and 1 resource to plead with MS support and baby sit the high-priced consultants when things go wrong).

  1. 14  tonyo  | 2/6/2008 6:58:33 PM

    Ed,

    you're reaching a bit buddy. One florida Lotus programmer that will create "Lotus scripts" and one in bangalore doesn't exactly mean a flood of new Notes development opportunities ( managed by Accenture anyway)

    I did a search for Accenture and Sharepoint on the same site and got 9 hits :)

  1. 15  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 2/6/2008 8:06:20 PM

    @Tony, they're -your- reference. I'm just putting the public pieces together of how a customer that "sunset" Notes in 2002 is still using it in 2008, despite trying to represent it as out of their environment in 2005. As for new apps, anything is >0, which again, is what was represented in the reference case and presentation.

    This is just one example.

  1. 16  David Gursky  | 2/6/2008 10:19:03 PM

    @3 -- Ed, two low level Notes geeks is NOT a turn around!

    Exxon Mobil, GM, Chysler, United, Boeing, Monsanto, Johnson Controls, BNY at one time or another had HUGE Notes/Domino staffs doing Cool Stuff -- not simply deploying e-mail. Do you REALLY believe they only built things in just the Notes world? That maybe they moved to Java or Python or C# in the years since, and that that they simply need some fairly low-level programmer to keep a legacy/stovepipe application chugging along?

    @4 -- Maria, believe it or not, I'm NOT missing the point. I'd be THRILLED if Accenture were going back to making Notes/Domino their primary mission critical app dec platform. They were an early and enthusiastic adopter of the product, but 2 wet-behind-the-ears programmers is not a sign of that.

    @13 -- Sorry Mike, no, I'm not. Accenture is a company who's staff is measured in the tens of thousands of people. Notes and Domino are great tools, but see my comment to Maria. No enterprise that size is going to turn over any large scale app to those few people, let alone those few people at such a low skill level.

  1. 17  David Gursky  | 2/6/2008 10:38:12 PM

    [Ed's note: I have removed a section of David's comment here that was factually inaccurate. David and I have e-mailed regarding this.]

    I was given the task of architecting a system that would allow our Sametime infrastructure to securely connect with AOL IM so that our creative staff could SECURELY interact in real time with our partners throughout the world. It seems some enterprising individual on a vendor sales team had convinced a less then technically savvy VP that the Sametime Gateway would do this for our staff end-to-end (i.e. the IM conversation would be secured from ease-dropping at ANY point.) [Again, you can all stop laughing -- >> I << know it doesn't work that way, but again, enterprising sales person and not-tech savvy marketing VPs are generally dangerous combinations.]

    It took about two weeks, but we did finally education this VP on how IM works and that no, we could only secure the transmission to AOL, not out to the final user, and by the way, this did nothing for Yahoo IM, Google Chat, and so on.

    Here's my point though Ed.

    There is a NEED for this type of secured real-time messaging, and there's a GREAT opportunity for IBM right now!

    Time Warner has put out a trial balloon about selling AOL, and Microsoft has announced their interest in acquiring Yahoo. Suppose IBM were to buy AOL (and in particular AOL IM) and upgrade the infrastructure for on-demand secure communication as a paid service for business clients? Technically...

    ...IBM would update the AOL IM client to support an SSL pipe.

    ...IBM would add a state bit to a user's "presence" inside of IBM to indicate if they are coming in via a secured connection (i.e. Sametime AOL Gateway).

    ...When a user coming in from that secured connection tries to communicate with a buddy, the connection is made with SSL encryption (and vice versa).

    That is expanding the pie, and adding value to Notes/Domino. At least that's my observation.

  1. 18  TimB  | 2/7/2008 12:16:46 AM

    Not that Ed needs any help from me, but clearly he doesn't claim that Accenture is a "notes shop" @6, nor creating "a flood of new Notes development" @14, nor having a "notes turnaround" or "built things only in the Notes world" @16.

    The irony here is that a company with that many development resources at its disposal, an "ascdendant" technology, and a 3-5 year old corporate mandate has *any* Notes applications still running. Doesn't matter if it is the corporate cafeteria menu -- keeping it was more valuable the migrating or killing it.

  1. 19  Clayton  | 2/7/2008 12:18:05 AM

    It goes to show that organisations should be more concerned with implementation of technology than the initial acquisition of it.

    Implementation is where it all can go to sh!t.....

  1. 20  Dave Madison  | 2/7/2008 1:34:40 AM

    Just taking a wild guess, but following up on Volker's comment, I'm willing to bet there are quite a few Exchange servers within IBM. Afterall, IBMGS does a fair amount of Exchange business. So, much like IBMGS, I'm sure Accenture doesn't turn away Notes business. Could very well be "Jeremy" is a "happy" Notes developer because his utilization is high. It doesn't necessarily mean "Jeremy", as an Accenture employee, uses Notes internally.

    "I am thrilled that Lotus Notes is still delivering value to Accenture"

    You mean kinda like Exchange is delivering value to IBMGS?

    { Link }

    { Link }

    { Link }

    Something tells me Exchange contributes more to IBM's bottom line than Notes does to Microsoft's. Just a guess.

  1. 21  Ian Scott  | 2/7/2008 3:00:27 AM

    Some years ago I had to work for Accenture - or Andersen Consulting as it was for about 2/3 of the contract. It was an Accenture managed project but I was actually recruited and employed by their client. Based on that real experience I conclude that the advertisement is for an Accenture staff job.

    @20 - You guess a lot. Facts are more persuasive and less emotional. There's no evidence the jobs are not internal staff jobs. If you - or anyone else - can offer evidence that they are contract positions for external projects I'll listen but until then I'll corellate it with my own experience and consider them to be internal positions and consider your comment to be one that is comparing apples with oranges in an attempt to obfuscate matters.

    The point remains that Accenture claim to have put Notes to bed some time ago but that there is evidence they are recruiting internal staff to support Notes applications.

    It might only be one job and it might be in India and for sure one swallow does not a summer make but in my part of the world I have seen FOUR times as many permanent Notes developer jobs advertised since November 2007 than I have seen per annum since 9/11. I believe it is too early to call it a trend (maybe it is just one job and lots of musical chairs) but I would most certainly not assert that it is not indicative of some kind of turning point.

    Interesting times.

  1. 22  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 2/7/2008 6:23:55 AM

    @18 Tim, thank you.

    @David and Dave, the job posting is not the only evidence point -- I rather think the link to the description of Accenture's Architecture and Infrastructure Services is more telling, since it explicitly states that Lotus Notes is part of the Accenture environment. I am not representing that it is the centerpiece of their IT architecture, the point is, simply, it is still there and being maintained, despite a sunset announced six years ago and a public representation of it being basically gone three years ago.

    @20 you must be so happy to be back at Microsoft.

  1. 23  Erik Brooks  | 2/7/2008 7:12:19 AM

    @20 - "You mean kinda like Exchange is delivering value to IBMGS?" Did you read your own links before you posted them?

    Your links don't show IBM *using* Exchange, or hiring MS-savy developers for use on internal .Net stuff. That would be a counterpoint.

    Exchange itself isn't directly delivering value to IBMGS. Instead it's the fact that ***Exchange needs support provided by somebody other than Microsoft*** that delivers value to IBMGS.

    And certainly at some point somebody on those IBM support teams says "You know, we could set you up with Lotus Notes/Domino..." sounds like a smart move by IBM to me.

    @9 - Ed, this had me spitting up coffee from my nose. Thanks for making my Thursday morning!

  1. 24  David Gursky  | 2/7/2008 7:22:50 AM

    Not that any of you doubted it, but this is simply a secondary confirmation of Ed's update on #17, that he has made an update to my post to remove information that is no longer accurate.

  1. 25  Danny Lawrence  | 2/7/2008 8:45:08 AM

    And here's another point: Accenture is still paying for those Notes servers and developers. I'm sure they aren't paying for Notes licenses, but those servers are still running and they still need some kind of maintenance, backups and the like. I'm sure that part of MSFT's pitch was all the money they would save by ditching Notes (ignoring the fact that Exchange still requires more administrators to service the same number of clients), and I'm sure Accenture got a great deal on all those MSFT licenses (maybe that's the real reason the Domino servers are still there) but they are still paying for a skillset that they should no longer need and for servers that should no longer be running.

  1. 26  Mark  | 2/7/2008 9:31:26 AM

    @25 - "I'm sure Accenture got a great deal on all those MSFT licenses". From what I can remember, a financial benefit of the Avanade deal was "all MS software for free." So yeah, that helped offset the enormous migration costs.

  1. 27  David Bell  | 2/7/2008 9:32:36 AM

    @25 - as the vast majority of customers who take this path end up doing.

    I'd really like to see the business case that justifies the cost of migration of mail to Outlook/Exchange while maintaining Domino applications as better than sticking with Notes/Domino mail.

  1. 28  Randy Smith http://www.certprimer.com | 2/7/2008 9:52:17 AM

    @19 - "Implementation is where it all can go to @#$%&"

    They say that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Based on the marketing hype and misinformation fed to these companies, often by M$ consultancy groups partially owned by M$ (such as Avanade) posing as *impartial* consultants, they are convinced that they can pull these Notes-to-Sharepoint/.NET application migrations off as easily as they've been led to believe. I've yet to hear about a real "success" story, but I know of several miserable failures. So, I'm not really suprised that even Accenture has not completed their migration of Notes applications after 5+ years. Call someone from the tech staff, help desk, or customer areas of one of these companies that have made one of these fateful migration decisions and ask them "How's that Notes-to-M$ migration project going?" and be prepared for a rant (you might get a different story from the CIO/decision makers that sent them on the road to hell).

  1. 29  Henry Ferlauto http://www.geniusinside.com | 2/7/2008 10:30:08 AM

    Ed - Great story. How long did it take you to assemble all those facts? You need to build a nice portfolio of these types of stories. It will make for good defense in SWAT situations, because Microsoft always dramatically undersells the effort it will take to "convert" applications. The sales team needs to drill in to customers that the when Microsoft says the word, "covert" it's code for, "re-write almost from scratch."

    @1 - It's okay, just write 3 Lotusscripts and 2 composite applications for your penance. :)

  1. 30  Ben Poole http://benpoole.com | 2/7/2008 10:56:44 AM

    As a *minute* business owner (the business is small, not me, ahem), even I get offers from MS (via third parties).

    Just today I had a mail from my domain registrars offering a hosted MS Exchange environment for my business, with free Outlook 2003 client software and a fair whack of storage. The cost? £5 per month, rising to £10 after the first few months. That is quite some deal (and includes mobile device access).

    Now, I don't need any of that, but I imagine a lot of companies take these offers up, and this is why MS have the mind-share they do.

  1. 31  Tony S Lee  | 2/7/2008 12:24:31 PM

    I know Vowe hates this kind of "marketing", (in my own defense I'm not exactly a Domino fanboy, I've installed and supported Exchange 2000 and 2003 as well as Domino 6 and 7) but reading about MS failures is a guilty pleasure I find irresistible...

  1. 32  Flemming Riis  | 2/7/2008 12:50:34 PM

    -but reading about MS failures is a guilty pleasure I find irresistible...

    well if IBM still havent won the case back isnt it a to way failure then ?

  1. 33  Danny Lawrence  | 2/7/2008 1:45:53 PM

    @30 Hopefully the purchase Of Netix and the advent of Lotus Foundations will give the Lotus/Domino world a foothold in that space.

    @27 The business case is simple "lookOut is Free, Notes clients cost money". I refer to people like this as knowing "The cost of everything and the value of nothing"

  1. 34  Bill Malchisky http://www.EffectiveSoftware.com | 2/7/2008 1:50:40 PM

    As I have spoken to Ed on this tidbit previous, I will not use the firm's name here. But a very large insurance company made the switch from Notes, ultimately b/c their IT Team completely botched the client installation--ignoring best practices and business needs across the board. The end users became irate. Rather than fixing the problem---which would have been relatively easy---they took the drastic approach of switching. "Well, the end users are complaining about Notes, let's give them Exchange." I fixed sales rep's laptop and they went from disliking Notes to saying, "Wow...this is a really good product. It's ashame we are moving to Outlook."

    Their migration path was anything but smooth. Loss of data, mail outages daily, upset end users who could not do their jobs and missed deadlines---forcing them to work significantly longer hours to complete their tasks. Very expensive.

    Also, they have a mission critical front-office app that a friend wrote via Notes in 240 hours (or just under six weeks). Very powerful app with lots of capabilities. In converting *just* *this* *app*, they brought in an entire Team from Microsoft.

    They paid MS 28 months of development expenses for the *Team* with no end in sight--for just this application. They have hundreds more to go.

    So one guy in 1.5 months, or a team for 28 months and climbing. In the end, this data only causes their prices to increase to cover the botched program.

    The IT Teams in this sense need to be accountable and heck, dare I say, send a bill to M$ for the overage, beyond what they were told it would cost. I know it won't happen, but it would certainly change the game if MS had to foot-the-bill for misrepresenting their pitched migration time-lines.

    If you migrate (your apps) to Exchange, "Be afraid. Be very afraid."

  1. 35  Pete McPhedran  | 2/7/2008 2:16:00 PM

    @33, Unfortunately, Nitix or Foundations is not the answer to the specific "problem" addressed in @30. Nitix is and will be a great SMB story, but the "problem" @30 is talking about is the multitude of hosted Exchange organizations out there with carte blanche to market and operate that way.

    Unfortunately IBM has no response currently to the pricing that is currently available from Microsoft for hosted services. I don't know how much I can say specifically, but suffice it to say that the software licensing costs for me to host a Notes mailbox is more than double that for an Exchange mailbox. The reporting is also what I like to call "Lotus style", you are free to reveal whatever you want, there is no audit mechanism.

    Microsoft's pricing is also completely standardized, so a company 150 times larger than mine gets the same pricing that I do, so volume means nothing.

    IBM has offered to provide me with hosted pricing, but it is a special bid process, specific to each opportunity, etc... and still doesn't come near the flexibility of the Microsoft SPLA program and until it does, the playing field will never be level.

    --Pete

  1. 36  NeilT  | 2/7/2008 5:21:05 PM

    Ed, I have a similar smile about RBOS every time someone who has worked there tells me Domino is still alive and well (albeit only web), 13 years after I put the first infrastructure in it.

    @34, Anyone can put in a botched cross platform migration. I once had 2 guys work for 4 months (in Notes) developing around the crazy decisions taken for a 6k user migration from Exchange to Notes. They were breaking Everything, losing and corrupting data. The users were being told to "suck it up" and get on with it.

    We succeeded, but only because I'm an awkward SOB and don't deal with failure well.

  1. 37  Henry Ferlauto http://www.geniusinside.com | 2/7/2008 5:36:13 PM

    @30 I completely agree.

    Nitix / Foundations will address some problems. I personally see it having enormous value for ISVs like ours because our application is full web enabled, offering equal web and Notes client experience. Being able to potentially someday offer a "Genius Project4Domino Appliance" should make it much easier for us to get into non-Notes shops; be that Exchange, Groupwise or other. It's the Apple Mac OS theory of "you do not need to be concerned with what's running in the background." Or as said best in the Wizard of Oz, "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain."

    On the note of hosting, it can't be just IBM offering hosted Lotus services. They need to get it out there in the ASP marketplace. I routinely site 1&1 because they very reasonably priced Microsoft hosting solutions, including Exchange and SharePoint.

    It would be very nice to see them or any ASP of equal or greater size offer comparably priced Lotus Notes & Domino, Sametime and Quickr. It's doesn't have to as in expensive by close.

    For example Exchange accounts on 1&1 run US$6.95 / month. SharePoint runs $20 / month.

    I would be quite happy to see Domino hosting for $9.95 / month, Sametime (Standard) for $24.95 / month and Quicker for $24.95 / month.

  1. 38  Franklin  | 2/7/2008 10:50:49 PM

    Management at my company have the impression that many companies are making the move from Notes to Sharepoint/Exchange, and none the other way. This gives them the idea that there must be something bad about Notes. They are being led to believe that the conversion is no problem, and that users will be able to "build" applications with minimal or no coding!

    Stories like Accenture's help to provide a "reality," but more of them are needed. Just one or two is not going to convince them. In addition, how about stories of companies moving from Sharepoint/Exchange to Notes, and why they are doing it. What is their migration experiences been like.

    Another issue I see is that management is often comparing apples to oranges. The majority of our applications were written in version 3, and have never been upgraded to take advantage of the new features and capabilities of the newer Notes releases. (Still on R6) They see these neat browser apps from MS, using the latest version of Sharepoint/Exchange, and start wishing for it. I bet if they saw what Notes/Domino 8 is capable of, it would knock their socks off!

  1. 39  TimH  | 2/8/2008 6:15:59 AM

    @28 -- The difference in opinion between the folks doing the work and those who made the decision is key -- and probably why Ed, et. al. don't already have the published portfolio of stories. In recent "evaluation" efforts, our "techies" contacted their peers at firms who supposedly had migrated completely -- and got similar facts (e.g., infrastructure doubled over MS estimate before even starting migration - and Domino apps still in place 5-6 years after "migration"). However, our execs, who make the final decision, call their peers -- the execs who made the decision to migrate.... When is the last time you heard an executive say, "I made a bad decision?"

  1. 40  Mike Robinson http://www.invcs.com | 2/8/2008 6:57:42 AM

    @39, pretty much that how it goes. We've got several sizeable customers in the Southeast US that "migrated" away from Domino to exchange- only to find out that all have retained Domino for mission critical apps that haven't been ported, or the porting ended up being a disaster. However the mail part was moved in most instances...

    Interesting though as *one* reason I've see for the *need* for Outlook was that some 3rd party app like a contact management system only worked with Outlook- that was the only reason given (well the one they touted anyway). I've seen it a lot in financial securities.

  1. 41  Henning Heinz  | 2/8/2008 7:24:28 AM

    If all those companies did a mistake wouldn't it be simple to get them back? Wouldn't that mean that you just have to migrate the mail and PIM data back to Domino (there are solid tools that can do that in a relatively short amount of time). Or if you are brave enough you can even run Outlook against a Domino server.

    Out of curiosity I would also like to see some of those apps that are extremely hard to migrate. I do not doubt that those exist, I would just like to find out more what make Domino applications so special.

  1. 42  patrix  | 2/8/2008 8:06:51 AM

    @6,9

    Check this out

    { Link }

    Seems like a waay cooler product than Notes/Domino ;-)

  1. 43  patrix  | 2/8/2008 8:08:24 AM

    Groovey...

    { Link }

  1. 44  mpl  | 2/8/2008 8:32:28 AM

    Ed and all,

    I'll give you an idea of how my company is looking at this, we have approximately 15,000 users

    Notes / Domino is not the strategic application development tool of choice, hence limited developments are done in Notes now. We are considering a migration away to Excahnge/Outlook for a number of reasons, too many to go into here, but some are, a very large IBM renewal, single core directory management, concerns around version 8 and its direction, integration with core technolgies, etc. Although I'm not prepared to go into actual specifics. Suffice to say we are not being niaive about what a migration means to us.

    We will be lifecycling the apps developed in Notes and removing this from the email/sametime migration timeline, this will be a separate deliverable. We accept fully we may still be running notes apps in a few years albeit on my current estimates, 1 application cluster. Our eyes are completely open to this, we know the pain points and are prepared for them.

    this is strategic decision to standardize on one vendors solution, ( incidentally the majority or my working life has been a notes admin/architect )

    cheers

  1. 45  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 2/8/2008 8:50:22 AM

    @37

    "they see these neat browser apps from MS, using the latest version of Sharepoint/Exchange, and start wishing for it. I bet if they saw what Notes/Domino 8 is capable of, it would knock their socks off!"

    So, why HAVEN'T they seen what Notes/Domino 8 is capable of. How do I (the Lotus sales team) get in to see them? What's the blocker here? (I know someone will say advertising, but what is described here is an executive who has "see"n something).

    @44 well that's disappointing -- what could be a "concern around version 8 and its direction"? And are you aware that Domino 8.5, coming this year, will provide the "single core directory management" tools you are seeking? Your comments sound basically like the standard Microsoft line for "why migrate" -- "standardize on one vendor" is not typcially something that actually works (see original post) or demonstrates actual value to your business, and we can address all of the other points you've raised (yes, potentially even including the "very large IBM renewal". I'd encourage you to contact me offline ed_brill@us.ibm.com to discuss.

  1. 46  Peter Z Lardas  | 2/8/2008 10:59:11 AM

    In my experience, companies making the transition from Notes to M$ do not seem to take into account the real costs of migrating applications.

    They look at email, and think they are done, and if they take applications into account, they usually do so using information they have gathered from a Microsoft contractor.

    Because many of these applications contain regulated data, they need to be available for up to seven years. And many applications that contain data that are not regulated, are mission critical - Sales Contacts, Invoices, various work flow applications, etc.

    Dumping this type of data to spreadsheets is often a bad option. Migrating ALL the data to another application in a usable format tends to be more time consuming and resource intensive than most companies originally anticipate.

    The result? Most of these companies end up running parallel systems for YEARS after their original migration timeline. Most, if not all will end up spending many times their original budget on the migration, will lose data, and in many cases end up with diminished functionality in the replacement applications.

  1. 47  Steven Kennett  | 2/9/2008 6:25:53 PM

    @44 And yet companies are still looking to migrate, it seems to me that despite all of this whinging about MS they seem to have the better Sales team as they're the ones we keep hearing about.

    Someone said why do we only hear about migrations away from Notes, well that is a good question why do we? If all the CEO's hear is that well surely it's going to make them think!

    Accenture still have a couple of Notes people compared to how many Exchange people, it doesn't surprise me that is the case because apps are difficult to migrate but who is laughing out of this, it's still MS isn't it, they've manage to keep getting people to migrate, they still have their systems in place at Accenture, are they bothered about a couple of Notes apps still being around, I doubt it. It's time for IBM to fight fire with fire, they need to get round every company with Notes and show them where the product it going, they need to get round every company with Exchange and show them where Notes et al is going.

    The reason for my rant here is that I work for a 10000 strong IT company in the UK who have had Notes since day one I believe and this year they are looking to migrate to Exchange and Sharepoint, why? A couple of thousand apps, many servers why why why? If the gloves are on it seems to me that MS are still winning the fight.

  1. 48  Nathan T. Freeman http://nathan.lotus911.com | 2/10/2008 5:51:55 PM

    @47 - That's a great question: why are they considering migration? What role do you have in that organization? Are you in IT? What are you being presented with as the business drivers for the move? Have you contacted Ed before? I notice you didn't leave an email address or company.

  1. 49  mike  | 2/10/2008 9:07:21 PM

    @48

    Same deal here, 5000+ worldwide. It's almost a fait accompli, but we're fighting hard. Doesn't help that we get zero love from IBM.

    Considering migrating because only one license vendor is easier.

    Sharepoint for some bizarre reason is considered the choice over Quickr.

    That said, our system architect has an agenda to push microsoft in to further line his, and the consulting company he owns, pockets.

  1. 50  Steven Kennett  | 2/11/2008 4:25:16 AM

    @47 No reason for leaving it out, you can ask the company offline if you wish to know.

    Interesting you ask about what role I have. I work for my company on a managed site, so outsourced, which means like the Accenture story my company will have or will try and migrate away but could still possibly recruit for Notes positions because site they manage requires those skills.

    Now on the site I am on I can help influence the customer and have done, they have just done a 3 year deal with IBM. However in my own company I don't know anyone unfortunately as we have our own IT team at another location. (although I am going to send an email to try and find out the reasons behind this, if possible)

    The other thing that comes from this is that my company has a lot of Managed sites, now if they are currently using Lotus Notes/Domino and they see us moving away from the product what sort of message is that sending out?

  1. 51  Steven Kennett  | 2/11/2008 4:26:16 AM

    Sorry meant @48 ;-)