Ed Brill

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1. 1  Michael Klüsener  | 7/6/2005 1:13:39 AM

   Are you really suprised?! One of our big custumers with about 10.000 users partly migrated from notes to exchange. It's the same story.

   Now they run both. Exchange for mailing and Notes/Domino for the applications they could not migrate or which they dont get published via webbrowser. It's hard to understand, but I think it's mostly the decision of some managers which were convinced by some marketing people who told them that Exchange will solve all their problems.

   I think Lotus/IBM should do the same the other way round ;-)

   But we will tell the truth.

1. 2  Mick Moignard www.dominopower.com | 7/6/2005 2:36:46 AM

   Ed

   Worth remembering the comment of mine that you used at Lotusphere here.

   Just think - after all the pain of migrating from one email system to another, what have you got? Email, same as before. So you spent all that time and all that money, to achieve what? Basically nothing, if the move is Notes to XC. If XC to Notes, then it's still nothing, but you do have the potential to exploit all the other things that Notes can do. Now tell your CFO that you want to spend all that money, and tell him what the result will be, then stand back.

   Or if you don't do the migration at all, you have the money and manpower that you would have sent on that available to do something that actually moves the enterprise forward.

   Mick Moignard

1. 3  Axel Janssen  | 7/6/2005 4:23:56 AM

   I have quite a lot experience with maintaining/modernizing notes apps. The older the notes app, the more costly the change. And this older apps are often the more important ones as they have survived such a long time.

   So customers should not underestimate the resulting costs.

   In early notes-4 times (around 98/99) and before people were used to code big chuncks of codes with formula language. Around 2000 people began to write more LotusScript. They still used formulas, but those formula scripts became much smaller than before.

   In my view the big chuncks of formula language are responsible for the refactoring/port-to-another-platform costs. And I am quite good at formula lanaguage. Nevertheless LotusScript is much easier to recode in Java or .NET (be it by code-monkey like me or by a tool).

   This is agrevated by the facts that the idea of refactoring itself (investing time in changing the inner working of the code without adding/changing functionality) never found many friends among the Notes programmers (my empirical experience)).

   On the other hand its not a particularly good idea to depend on code which noone understands anymore. Because this code is virtually not changeable. This is agravated by the fact that there are certain (very few) sophisticated R3 hacks with formula language, which does not even run on Domino 5. Downward compatibility is never perfect.

   As a programmer I am a big friend of the standardization of programming which comes with J2EE and .NET (both are quite similar).

   Axel

1. 4  Carlo Orecchia www.stige-net.com | 7/6/2005 5:07:33 AM

   Hi Ed,

   I just sen a mail to IBM Partner World which adevised us of the changes to operating model in Europe.

   I think that the problem, at least for us in Italy, in which compaanies are very small, is that Marketing Communications is very confusing, not clear and aimed to technical people not to Company Owners, CEOs an Managers.

   If IBM doesn't start to speak to people that doesn't know what Information Technology is, confusing IT with the Sony Playstation or MS Xbox of their son, things would only get worse.

   This market are attacked from the bottom, eroded by smallest tehcnologies up to the big ones.

   Regards, Carlo.

1. 5  Axel Janssen  | 7/6/2005 6:26:53 AM

   English language is very difficult one. I never knew that erosion were another word for freedom of choice.

   Brothers and Sisters: Its just not the time to make tough love with one and the same technology from birth until asking entrance to Heavens Door.

   Its not only italian small business. Look at a company called IBM. They support php projects, they support openSource java/j2EE, heck they paid lots of money to buy the lead developers of a J2EE server competing with Websphere (Geronimo, that is), on developerworks there is new article series about spring-Framework, which is a bit different approach of j2ee dev than IBM Rational Developer.

   I want every visitor of this site to lay down his gun against other technologies.

   Stop fighting. Start learning.

   Ibm does the same.

   peace Axel

1. 6  Subhan http://slate.blogspirit.com | 7/6/2005 7:17:19 AM

   At my place, we are in the same rough waters (not so easy app./workflow migration), and I am in the wait and watch mode. Or I might not stay put long enough to watch the end.

   Though you would be lucky if you manage to get failed/costly migration references.

   Some insights here { Link }

1. 7  Ports mrports.blogspot.com | 7/6/2005 7:51:16 AM

   I remember a large UK company being persuaded to move from Domino to Exchange after Microsoft promised the software free and with free services (very high profile company). They got about 5% of the way into the migration and simply could not get Active Directory and Exchange working so rolled back to Domino. Sadly but not surprisingly they won't let IBM publicise this because of the damage it would to their relationship with Microsoft.

1. 8  Mike Lazar  | 7/6/2005 8:51:51 AM

   As a provider of managed services (both Domino & Exchange), I get asked this question a lot. My standard answer is there is really NO compelling argument to switch, in either direction. The pain of the migration and retraining of staff isn't worth the headache. Now, certainly it is easier to go from Exchange to Domino than Domino to Exchange, but neither really will see a true ROI in the usual requisite 12 months. M&A activity is the only time a migration can really make sense. Outside of that (or cleanup from previous M&A activity that should have happened), the only times I am seeing migration activities are when a new CEO comes online and wants to use the other technology (sadly this is usually a Domino shop going Exchange). Most of the time these sorts of moves do not make financial sense.

1. 9  Stu Mac http://www.uksatnavltd.com | 7/6/2005 11:22:27 AM

   @5 Axel, I admire your stance on these issues, though its hard to see a place for it in the commercial world we live and work in... For example, I personally have never managed to convince a customer that we could sell both IBM and Sun servers, or IBM and MS middleware, or hell even Redhat and SUSE linux, and truly offer a neutral independent POV, whilst also offering the best value obtainable in the market. It just doesn't work like that. Customers get best value (financially at least) by getting vendors/partners to fight against one another... It ain't nice but it works for them...

   @8 Mike, I like that answer, and its an argument I haven't tried on customers before - I'll give that one a go next time.

1. 10  Brad Hoyt www.hoytconsulting.com | 7/6/2005 1:30:07 PM

   Having been involved in Exchange to Domino and Exchange to Exchange migrations, I'd say that migration between Exchange versions is more difficult than an Exchange to Domino conversion.

1. 11  Eric Parsons startingblockcomputing.com | 7/6/2005 2:25:50 PM

   @1. I agree, and would extend the "will solve all their problems." I don't care what the product or service, a promise like that, would be met with much skepticism in this camp. I think that is the message from what I'm hearing even at the client (user) level.

1. 12  Axel Janssen  | 7/6/2005 2:50:04 PM

   @Stu: and as a IBM partner for what we are going to fight?

   For php, Geronimo, Websphere, Domino or WAS?

   There were times I did more Java. Currently more Domino, but also java-Webservices over ssl. In the meantime my spring demo is becoming presentable. And everything will change again.

   On codestore.net we will be told how to use the office-xml stuff.

   Axel

1. 13  Greg Walrath http://www.univarusa.com/ | 7/6/2005 5:41:43 PM

   On a side note - somebody's not too happy with having to customize Sharepoint:

   { Link }

1. 14  Chris Doig  | 7/7/2005 1:14:39 PM

   Due to a merger, I have been in the job market looking for a Notes Manager position for a while. In late 2003 and most of 2004 there were no jobs listing Exchange to Domino, although there were a few Domino to Exchange. Suddenly in the past few weeks I have seen 2 Exchange to Notes project management positions advertised.

   Ed, if you want keep a pulse on the movement of the market, set up an agent on Dice.com for "(exchange or outlook) and (notes or domino)". That will really tell you what is going on.

1. 15  Villi  | 7/7/2005 1:49:18 PM

   Why not release a "Notes lite" client? Something that starts up in 10 seconds, and only does mail? Come to think of it, I think I will write an Eclipse plug in that does just that (10 second startup may be factored out:)

1. 16  MarvinK  | 7/7/2005 5:50:36 PM

   What is surprising is that Lotus continues to release sub-par user interfaces, despite the continuing loss of customers to Microsoft. One of the main reason people leave is the appeal of the end user interface of Outlook. It is nice to see some potential for change with Notes 8, but why isn't already fixed? It's not just ugly icons and bizarre behavior (sent view vs folder, for example), but even things like shortcut keys are bizarre when compared with standard Windows applications. Everyone likes the security of stability of Notes, but the interface wears on users--and most companies have some high-power users who can heavily influence decisions to switch.

1. 17  Nathan T. Freeman  | 7/8/2005 3:15:45 AM

   @15) The HAVE done that in the past, and it didn't do well. Maybe that will change in today's atmosphere, but with DAMO and iNotes available, there's already two alternative client platforms. (By the way, Outlook takes FOREVER to launch, too. And unlike Notes, it also takes forever to shut down.)

   @16) Can you say "dead horse?"

1. 18  Jack Ratcliff http://jackratcliff.com | 7/8/2005 12:17:34 PM

   @16)What shortcut keys are you referring to? My biggest gripe with Outlook (and I've been using it for 4 years) is that it does NOT use the same shortcut keys that other windows apps use.

   For instance:

   * To do a "Find" in almost all Windows apps you do a "Ctrl+F", but in Outlook you have to use the F4 key. What's worse, is that a "Ctrl+F" in Outlook does a "Forward".

   * To do a "Find & Replace" in other apps you do a "Ctrl-H", but in Outlook you can NOT even do a Find & Replace! The support folks at my company told me if you want to do a find and replace then copy the text of your email and past into MS Word and then do your find and replace. (and that's about the only time I use Word!)

   Then there's the issue with Print Preview in Outlook. It does not work for HTML emails.

   Finally, don't even get me started with the issue of searching in Outlook! It's painfully slow.

   And, Oh how I wish I had an "All Documents" view in Outlook.....

1. 19  MarvinK  | 7/8/2005 2:59:34 PM

   F3 is the other common search shortcut, which does work. Find and Replace works OK for me (even as Ctrl+H)... and I hope you aren't arguing HTML mail support in Notes as superior!?

   Dead horse or not, so is the complaining about people bailing ship in favor of Exchange. You would think that with it being such a 'dead horse' issue, Lotus wouldve sat up and taken notice before now.

1. 20  Jack Ratcliff http://jackratcliff.com | 7/8/2005 4:23:38 PM

   @19) Never said HTML mail support in Notes was superior. I just don't understand why you can't do a Print Preview of an HTML mail in Outlook

   Also, How did you get Outlook to do a Find & Replace? What version of Outlook are you using? I'm using Outlook 2003 and it still does not work. Are you using MS Word as your email editor? That's the only way I can think of that you have got it to work.

1. 21  MarvinK  | 7/12/2005 4:38:27 PM

   Yes, I use Word 2003 as the editor. I've tried the same option in Notes on multiple occasions and have generally had much worse luck. Too bad, because you can make tables and perform other tasks easily in Word--which take an act of God in Notes mail editor.

   I cant do Print Preview.... I wish I could get IE to print reliably--Microsoft should spend some time on that feature.