Exchange vs. Notes: mail only

[roleki]

The company I work for was acquired by a much larger international entity a few years back. For the bulk of that period we have been allowed to continue using our exsiting applications, such as Office & Exchange 2003.

Today we received notice that we are required to justify our adherence to these applications or migrate to Office 2007 and Lotus Notes in the next 30 days.

So far, everything I have read indicates that Notes is comparable to Outlook/Exchange, but a little overkill if the intent is to use it as a mail client only, which seems to be the case in this instance. Any time I read a negative about either, it's conjecture with more roots in opinion than actual experience.

I guess I'm here wondering, is there any legitimate reason to remain on Exchange, other than the obvious "Ugh. Change." response?

 

[fredericofonseca]

cost perhaps. don't know which one costs less in terms of maintenance, both of client and server costs, including hardware.

From the point of usability, Exchange is, in some aspects easier than Lotus. But Lotus is quite more powerful.

From the point of view of client side, it depends on the version of Lotus you use and whether you will be using the windows client or the webclient. If you go to the latest version then webclient is quite good. If you go to the windows client, then in most aspects Lotus can behave better than outlook.

Migrating Office to 2007 is going to be VERY, VERY annoying to all users, specially the ones that KNOW how to really use it, mainly Excel.

Regards

Frederico Fonseca
SysSoft Integrated Ltd

http://www.syssoft-int.com

FAQ219-2884
FAQ181-2886

 

[roleki]

Migrating Office to 2007 is going to be VERY, VERY annoying to all users, specially the ones that KNOW how to really use it, mainly Excel.

Uh-oh. I was counting on that to be the easy part!

Well, not really - I've read a lot of negative things about Office07, but had hoped that most of the complaints were overblown.

As far as the migration to Lotus goes, I'm going to assume that it's a done deal, provided there's not a compatability issue with existing software somehow. I just get the feeling that cost and user acceptance won't be strong enough arguments to stay the lone Exchange island in a sea of Lotus sites. Ah, well.

 

[SQLSister]

Don't forget training costs in money and lost productivity. Also, can you migrate your old emails to Notes? In many jobs you need access to the old emails for legal reasons.

I agree Office 2007 is extremely annoying to anyone who knows a previous version well. Nothing is done the same way. Many many users are not as proficent at learning new software as IT people and it was a pain for most of us here to learn, so I can imagine many non-IT people would not even be able to learn how to use it without a formal training class. I mean they hid save as and print for goodness sakes. And no more menus at all. Plus, Exchange comes with Office, so why spend the extra to also get Notes. It's not like there is anything to be gained from moving to Notes, since Notes and email customers can send each other emails, right?

On the other hand, I can understand requiring all users to use the same versions of Office if there is any document exhange at all going on. I converted to 2007 for just that reason. But do all your employees have computere which can handle Office 2007 or will you need to upgrade some of them to newer machines. Don't forget to look into that and cost it out.

"NOTHING is more important in a database than integrity." ESquared

 

[shoalcreek]

They expect you to migrate this in 30 days?

There is a cliche, but it is true: "Don't fix it if it isn't broken."

However, I can understand a company's desire for consistency within the company.

 

[roleki]

They expect you to migrate this in 30 days?

There's an AD migration in there, too. But, corporate is doing as much of the legwork as they can, so it's not like they're handing us a brick and asking us to build a space shuttle out of it.

As far as the Notes/Exchange thing goes, the most tangible issue we've come up with so far is that our ERP system is incompatible with Notes. But, I'm afraid that could open a whole new can of worms i.e., "just migrate to our ERP system while you're at it.

 

[lionelhill]

Just a thought, a psychological one.

You could try applying corporate positiveness to this one. The original demand was "migrate or justify", so the door is open for feedback.

Respond positively that you are delighted to have been offered the opportunity to migrate to Office 2007 and thereby come in line with the rest of your company, and that you now estimate the resources you will require to handle the changes, including software, retraining of existing staff, updating any necessary hardware etc. will be....

 

[fredericofonseca]

SQLSister,

It is possible to automatically migrate Outlook/exchange emails/contacts to Lotus. Some issues may arise in some occasions, but always a solution at hand if their IT people know what they are doing.

Regards

Frederico Fonseca
SysSoft Integrated Ltd

http://www.syssoft-int.com

FAQ219-2884
FAQ181-2886

 

[chiph]

I've been suffering under Notes for the past 3 years. As a desktop client, it feels like something that was written by drunk orangutans.

My advice would be to look into a Notes-Exchange connector at the server level, so that you can keep your users happy, and still send email with the corporate masters.

One thing that you can use to justify keeping Exchange is the ability to attract/retain good workers. I know of at least two occasions where talented people (developers with 6-figure salaries) left the job the same day they started, because the firm used Notes for email.

Chip H.


____________________________________________________________________
www.chipholland.com

 

[xmsre]

There was once upon a time a website called iArchitect, and on it they had the "User Interface Hall of Shame". The site is long gone, but the page lives on in mirrors...

http://homepage.mac.com/bradster/iarchitect/lotus.htm

 

[lespaul]

Luckily, the User Interface isn't quite that bad anymore, that was version 4 and I know my organization on version 6, but 8 is the latest available (we haven't upgraded due to our Cisco phone systems not integrating with the later versions without hardware modifications). While there are definitely some issues (still) with the UI, it's not as bad as that website makes it out to be.

Our next email transition will be to the open source Zimbra server and client...

Leslie

Have you met Hardy Heron?

 

[xmsre]

The example is dated for sure; the site doesn't exist anymore. Sure, there have been "improvements" between version 4 and version 8. Many of the misguided design aspects of the user interface do however remain in place.