ZDNet Australia: AHL ousts Exchange for Lotus

December 12 2006

Another merger/acquisition story goes in favor of Lotus Notes...

Microsoft's Exchange collaboration platform will no longer be used by Amalgamated Holdings (AHL), as the diversified Australian company has started standardising its operations on IBM's rival software Lotus Notes. ...

"Half the business ran Notes already -- the Rydges Hotels ran Notes, and the other half of the business ran Exchange. They've decided to bring it all into a Notes environment," IMC sales director Matt Dixon told ZDNet Australia via telephone last week.

"They've got corporate-wide business applications that run on Notes as well, so it sort of made sense to bring the mail across from Exchange to have everything run on the same platform."
Link: ZDNet Australia: AHL ousts Exchange for Lotus  > (via Duffbert)

Ed Brill | Vancouver, BC Canada Category:  Lotus  Add/View Comments [12]

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  1. 1  Hynek Kobelka http://www.pylonware.com | 12/13/2006 5:33:52 AM

    No comments at all ?

    Thats sad. :-(

    If the message was the other way around then we would proberbly see a huge discussion. Looks like its true that positive news does not drag much attention :-))

    Nevertheless congratulations to whoever is responsible for this !

  1. 2  Henning Heinz  | 12/13/2006 8:08:39 AM

    Well, there is not much I could add with a comment. I read it, I like it, I wish there would even be more success stories like this here (although I tend not to comment).

    It is not easy to win against Exchange nowadays so someone has done a good job here.

    My favourite post so far this month was "Snow Day" from Dec, 1st and I did not comment either.

  1. 3  Steven Kennett  | 12/13/2006 8:15:49 AM

    Why is not easy to win against Exchange? Is that because IBM are still not marketing the product very well?

    It's interesting that when I look at ComputerWeekly each week there is always an article on Exchange yet I never read anything about Lotus Notes/Domino !!

  1. 4  Henning Heinz  | 12/13/2006 8:25:57 AM

    I am not a fan of the IBM marketing theory (but I know others are).

  1. 5  Danny Lawrence  | 12/13/2006 9:50:02 AM

    Actually this one would be more embarassing if they *Lost* it, I mean half the company was already using Notes, and they were running company wide Notes applications. I know there are still a few companies who feel that "lookOut/Exchanged for e-mail and Notes for Collaberation" is a good idea (thereby proving they know the cost of everything and the value of nothing), but fewer Exchanged servers in the world is a good theing no matter how it happens.

  1. 6  NeilT  | 12/13/2006 2:46:59 PM

    On the face of it this looks like an up to date Notes/Domino investment rolling up an aged and unmaintained Exchange environment as part of a post merger technology refresh. Sound common sense and good news, but hardly an earth shaking IBM beats MS decision. More a consequence of an investment dearth.

    Personally I wonder how deep the knives will go when they start looking at deploying Notes8. I suspect that an early win could be a long term loss if another technology refresh is required on the desktop to support it. One thing is certain, time will tell.

  1. 7  Andrew Brew  | 12/13/2006 3:54:08 PM

    Actually, I think that the AHL Notes/Domino implementation is not particularly up-to-date either, but they do know the value of the platform. Perhaps crucially, they do not use it for mail only. They are heavily dependent on real Notes apps, and those are something that Exchange simply can't compete with.

  1. 8  Dave  | 12/14/2006 10:29:36 AM

    Well, first off Exchange is not a "collaboration platform", it is an email server. So, nothing like hyperbole in a headline to get someone's attention.

    This would be more of a story if the whole company ran Exchange, Sharepoint, and LCS and decided to go with Notes, Workplace, and Sametime. As it stands the is appears the real story is they decided to standardize in Domino for their email server. Yawn.

  1. 9  Scott http://thebigredshark.com | 12/14/2006 6:33:53 PM

    I think more of this needs to be in the press - perception, regardless of reality is everything.

    At the View conference in Vienna it was stated [and i'm para-phrasing because I didn't have a tape recorder :-) ] that 'domino had a presence in some 70% of the Fortune 100 companies - up from 53% 2 years ago'

    Thats quite impressive - and yet keeping up with Notes/Domino as I do, all these wins have gone unnoticed.

    Come on guys, get marketing...

  1. 10  Peter  | 12/15/2006 6:24:40 AM

    Notes applications may have been a driver for this decision. Not every company may decide the same way, especially when the Notes application landscape gets out of hand and is not necessarily perceived as something positive. Additionally one can look at applications and messaging services (email etc.) as two separate things and evaluate their value as such. I agree with some of the comments about the marketing parts as we have done a similar analysis finding that our acquisitions usually do not come with our standard email platform, but either on exchange or some exotic type of email system. My first hand experience having people and presentation material from IBM and Microsoft in the house is that the Microsoft people have been trying to put in the effort and had a clear set of information nicely packaged that answers the management type of questions and concerns. Some companies pick up on that: Clear messages, clear strategy etc. In our case, we were very careful just using this information and speaking with different analysts and people inside of IBM we decided to keep Lotus as our standard platform.

  1. 11  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 12/18/2006 10:30:37 AM

    Interesting follow-up on this thread. Microsoft's Peter de Haas tried to take the comments here and make it sound like a migration from Exchange to Notes is unusual, which I don't think is what I was saying (or you were saying) at all. Further, Peter's response is to link to a bunch of MS case studies -- few of which actually make any relevant point (and many of which have plenty of double-speak). Check out the discussion: { Link }

  1. 12  Peter de Haas http://www.peterdehaas.net | 12/18/2006 11:11:00 AM

    @11

    Ed I am not debating whether thins are usual or unususal with regards to migrations. I claim that the *frequency* is the main difference ;-)

    My humble analysis of people's comments to your post is that they are not overly excited by IBM activities with regards to proofpoints. Again this is my point of view.

    Case studies are a nice indication but marketshare is a good proofpoiny