Despite most of the market shifting to Microsoft Office 365 and even Google Apps to some extent, there are still many organizations running IBM Lotus Notes for email, calendaring and line-of-business applications and collaboration.
However, the clock is definitely ticking for them to move. We’ve seen a steady market of customers around the world looking to migrate from Lotus Notes to Office 365, Exchange and SharePoint for a variety of reasons, including:
- Merger or acquisition
- Corporate initiative to move to the cloud
- Upcoming IBM renewal and/or end of product support
- IT resources with Notes expertise are scarce
- Better integration with other business systems, such as Microsoft Office
A Lotus Notes migration is a business transformation that affects every user, mailbox and application in the organization. It’s up to the IT staff and migration team to steer a successful project, ensuring that all technical, business and operational goals are achieved. But many challenges stand in their way:
- Risk of business disruption — System downtime or data loss can disrupt user productivity, halt business operations and workflow, swamp the help desk with support calls, and thwart momentum and adoption of the new Microsoft platform.
- Tight timeline — Migrations must be finished on-schedule to eliminate or reduce Notes infrastructure faster and meet critical deadlines (such as to avoid the next IBM maintenance renewal or to complete an acquisition). However, Gartner finds that many projects last two to three years, while some complex environments inundated with custom applications may take up to seven years to eliminate!
- Limited budget and resources — Migrations are expensive projects that require considerable expertise and resources. Very few IT professionals have much (if any) migration experience, but must become an expert quickly or seek budget to hire additional staff.
- Limited visibility — Gartner says an average Notes environment is 15 years old. During this time there is a massive build-up of standard and custom apps, as well as inactive or orphaned mailboxes. Jumping into a migration blind without proper inventory puts you at risk of spending time, resources and budget moving non-essential data and overlooking critical requirements.
- Project complexity — The vital integration between email and applications makes a Notes migration extremely complex and time-consuming. Executing a Notes migration without fully understanding the interdependency between email and applications can disrupt automated workflow, business process and user productivity. Native methods lack critical functionality, and custom scripting is a tedious, time-consuming and manual process that increases the risk of data loss and project delays. There is no other comprehensive solution offering pre-migration analysis, migration and coexistence across Notes email and applications.
Above all these challenges, the IT staff’s reputation is at stake. If something goes wrong, all fingers are pointing back to IT.
Luckily, we have the experience, tools and support to help you deliver a ZeroIMPACT Notes email and app migration to Office 365, Exchange and SharePoint.
We’ve captured our years of Lotus Notes migration thought leadership and expertise into two new white papers:
- Best Practices for Migrating Notes Email to Exchange and Office 365
- How to Overcome the Top 8 Challenges during Notes-to-SharePoint Migrations
You’ll learn about the most common challenges customers face and discover best practices for how to avoid them. We’ll also share tips for pre-migration discovery and considerations for establishing coexistence throughout the migration.
With the right strategy, planning and tools, you can proceed with confidence and position your organization for success on your new Microsoft platform.
Check out these white papers today!
