Keeping the dream alive ?

Last week I read an interesting post over on Ed Brill’s Blog :

ZDNet Australia: AHL ousts Exchange for Lotus and Ed’s comment :

“Another merger/acquisition story goes in favor of Lotus Notes…”

I thought “Another ?” As if you read Microsoft to Lotus Notes / Domino migrations on a regular basis. I don’t at least. When reading further I noticed that Ed came across this “competitive win” by accident (via Duffbert) …

Looking at the various comments to this post most of the readers seem to agree with me in that analysis.

After reading this “Success story” for IBM I have a few remarks :

… 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….

Sure this hurts 😉 however… Microsoft Exchange is not Microsoft’s Collaboration platform. It is an email / calendaring platform which is part of the collaboration platform. I guess ZDnet should know this …

… The Notes consolidation work is part of a larger technology refresh project being carried out by local systems integrator IMC Communications, who will do work in over 100 of AHL’s sites nationwide. …

…”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.”…

All to often the Domino applications are a point of discussion. Which makes sense, because the company has made investments to create them and most likely they are depended on some / all of the functionality. But have they really analised the applications ? …. assessed their functionality ? ….reviewed their relevance ? In today’s world it is not uncommon, especially with a large technology refresh project underway to rationalise applications, no matter the platform. I am not saying this company would have made a different decision, but they would have had more insight to their decision most likely …

… AHL is also in the process of migrating around 1500 PCs from the unsupported Windows NT platform to the latest versions of Microsoft’s XP operating system and Office XP software suite, with its servers moving to Windows Server 2003 R2…

The latest versions ? Office XP was introduced some 5 years ago ! Maybe Office 2007 would have been to much of a leap for this company (coming off of Windows NT and Office 97 or 2000 most likely), but Office 2003 would have been a better choice. This makes you wonder how this project was approached and why they settle for older versions.

Anyway .. back to Ed’s claim ..  “Another merger / acquisition goes in favor of Lotus Notes…”

I went over to the IBM Website to check out the most likely huge list of competitive wins …

Here are according to their website the most “recent” competitive wins (checked on 17/12/2006) :

  • CCPOA: May 2006
  • Baleno : May 2006
  • Municipality Prostejov : June 2006
  • ASTORplast Klebetechnik : June 2006
  • DOV Pharmaceutical : March 2006
  • Vernon Carus : January 2006

It seems the commenters to Ed’s post are right : There is not much to write about I guess. But someone has to keep the dream alive …

 

Microsoft on the other hand is doing very well in moving Lotus Notes clients over to the Microsoft platform; even those with Domino applications 😉 Don’t take my word for it, check the case studies, check the market analysis.

Always good to check the Microsoft website for some recent casestudies :

December 2006 :

  • Hommes & Process
    Software Provider Adopts Dynamic Collaboration Solution for Internal Projects
    Executives at Hommes & Process, a major French distributor of collaboration solutions based on Groove® Virtual Office, now part of the 2007 Microsoft® Office system, wanted to apply their expertise internally. They deployed an early version of Office Groove 2007 to a group of testers, who found the solution to be a convenient collaboration tool for the company’s highly mobile workforce and a dynamic environment for working across firewalls.

November 2006 :

  • Endsleigh Insurance
    CRM Solution Supports Insurance Company Growth and Offers Seamless Integration
    The IT architecture at Endsleigh Insurance, which was based on Lotus Notes, was stifling the company’s ability to take on new prospects. Employees were frustrated by the time-consuming nature of the system, and the reliance on paper-based processes was impacting security. Working with Microsoft® Gold Partner Ciber, Endsleigh Insurance implemented Microsoft Dynamics™ CRM as part of an overall initiative to standardise on Microsoft technology. Having installed the solution, the group then upgraded to Microsoft CRM 3.0 to give each team access to information relevant to their division, without having to search through an entire database. The upgrade also lets the teams benefit from the seamless integration of Microsoft CRM and Microsoft SQL Server™„Reporting Services, improving the efficiency of staff and letting them take on board a wave of new prospects.
  • Hauser
    European Transport Company Boosts Customer Service with Integrated CRM System
    Hauser is an International haulage company employing around 130 people across England and Scotland. It strives to deliver a fast and reliable service and the company must have an IT infrastructure on which it can rely as it found that as a growing company, its existing technology was not flexible enough to handle the growth of its business.
  • Industrial Technology Research Institute
    Research Institute Replaces Lotus Notes with Exchange Server 2007 Messaging Solution
    The Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) is a nonprofit research and development organization in Taiwan. Comprising more than 20 technical and research centers, ITRI needed a messaging solution that met the needs of each group and the organization as a whole. ITRI had outgrown its IBM Lotus Notes e-mail system, which was unable to handle the growing volume of messages. Wanting a secure solution that would accommodate multiple user domains, ITRI replaced its existing e-mail system with Microsoft® Exchange Server 2007.
    The new solution offers enhanced calendar and e-mail management features and gives users options for remote and mobile access. The system is far more stable and reliable, and administrators are able to enforce more stringent access and security policies.
  • Universitätsklinik Aachen
    University Clinic Cuts IT Management Costs with Next-Generation Messaging System
    University Hospital Aachen (UKA) houses all patient care services, including medical and dentistry faculties and student training, under one roof. At such a large organization—with more than 5,500 employees treating 160,000 patients and training more than 2,700 students a year—communication is critical. The UKA messaging system, based on IBM Lotus Notes 6.5, was increasingly expensive to administer and failed to integrate with third-party core applications. To optimize resource management and develop mobile communications, UKA started the migration to a Microsoft® Exchange Server 2007 environment as part of the Rapid Deployment Program (RDP). The hospital has already seen better performance, synchronization of mobile devices, and improved integration with the 2007 Microsoft Office system and third-party applications. What’s more, UKA has cut administrative costs considerably.

Anyway … lots of them : Please check http://www.microsoft.com/casestudies/search.aspx?Keywords=lotus%20notes if you want more …