As so often heard (and seen in this reason), people (read: management) are talking about moving away from Notes/Domino to Exchange. I believe it is a never ending subject and many will fight till the end. People who have too much time at work and think Exchange will make it all better. Maybe because they have a copy of Exchange on their home PCs, maybe because they think simple mail will run a whole company, maybe because the icon is brown instead of yellow etc.
No matter what you tell them they wont listen.
But how is it strategically. What are the big big reasons for staying on Notes/Domino, e.g the powerful replication, clustering, the security, the platform, the use of templates etc.
Can you please help me… What are the 5 top reasons for staying on Notes/Domino.
Thanks,
Kjeld
PS. Some good reasons must have had arrived with R8…
Subject: 5 biggest reasons for staying with Notes and Domino.
One reason (of many) to stay with Notes/Domino would be that you probably have any number of Notes applications running in your environment. Migrating e-mail to Exchange would mean doubling the number of servers and licenses, if you intend to keep these applications. So you don’t get more value with Exchange, than you already have with Notes/Domino, just a higher cost for the same functionality.
Well somebody should proof read these documents before they are released. The first line of the second paragraph in the introduction states that ‘Notes/Domino R6 is the last planned release of the existing Notes architecture’… Hmm, wonder what I’ve been beta testing then for the past few weeks…
A few years ago, E-PRoMag released a document named “Converting From Notes to .NET, According To Microsoft”
Subject: 5 biggest reasons for staying with Notes and Domino.
What is the business case for migrating? User preference is hard to put a value on. I have a senior manager claiming that having to learn Notes is a huge productivity drain on new employees. He doesn’t seem to think learning new HR, Expense Reporting, Internal Portal, etc to be a problem, but Notes? This is a huge problem. What are the risks? Even with the “best” migration tools there will still be some content that will not migrate. Put all the facts on the table, and Notes will come out on top.
Subject: RE: 5 biggest reasons for staying with Notes and Domino.
See, and thats the difficult thing about it - if the senior manager is convinced (contrary to the fact) that learning to use Notes is a “huge productivity drain”, then thats what he thinks, and you will never convince him, even though you have all the facts and maybe even do a test or two, to demonstrate the fallacy.
People believe what they want to believe. Perceptions are reality to the perceiver. Someone that had a good experience with MS, but maybe used a poorly design Notes db once, good luck on getting that perception changed. You know why MS hasn’t swallowed Notes up - because they can’t try as they mightily as they will. Notes is just too good, and MS can’t compete with it. If your management can’t/won’t understand that…what can -you- do ?
I would just find some Notes shop to work at where there was a commitment to the technology I wanted to use, rather than every year or two feeling at risk and having to try to convince people of something they don’t want to believe. Let the challenges be technical, at least thats what I would say.
A couple of years ago I saw my (now-former) employer’s licensing costs for all Lotus-branded technology: Quickplace, Notes, LEI, Sametime and who knows what else. It came to $42 per desktop. It was fun to ask people their estimate of what we were paying – the usual estimate was around $200 – and then tell them the real figure and watch their eyes bug out.
