Well, that was a first for me. A small company – 8 users with Domino and BES on SBS 2003 – had one guy who bought an iPhone and didn’t want the Web access to his mail so the company ditched Domino for Exchange! One of the other guys from our company did the migration with Exchange and Domino side-by-side on the same server (it went very smoothly, I was quite impressed) and I was called in to migrate BES from Domino to Exchange for the other company members.
They were only using Domino for mail, but all the same, how do you justify a business case for this based on a single user’s desire to use an iPhone? And you know the real kicker? The iPhone user is the only one in the office with a Mac, so he’s running a Windows emulator for Outlook!!!
Well, the *real* kicker is that Domino will shortly be supporting iPhone through Lotus Traveler via ActiveSync, so there was no need for the migration just to get that capability
http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/27493.wss
Comment by Kevin Pettitt — June 14, 2009 @ 8:16 pm
I am not suprised. IBM has moved very slowly in getting Traveler to the market in a form that supports iPhone syncing(some time in 2009 is not what customers want to hear). Customers just get tired of waiting for things they consider necessary and if they only use Domino for mail(this is a sin in itself),then iPhone support is a legitimate reason to change.
Comment by Curt Carlson — June 14, 2009 @ 11:45 pm
@1 – You’re right of course Kevin, but along the lines of Curt’s comment, if they’re not interested in waiting around for the Domino release and then to see whether it’s stable/works when it’s already proven in an Exchange environment, there’s not a lot of chance of convincing them to hold off on the move.
@2 – They’re a financial advisory firm and use ACT for CRM so weren’t interested in any Domino-based apps at the time we approached them.
Comment by Mike Burford — June 14, 2009 @ 11:58 pm
They are a FINANCIAL ADVISORY firm? And they migrated messaging platforms for the sake of one user who couldn’t wait a few months for native iPhone support? Anyone see the problem here?
Hell, they could have auditioned it on Greenhouse.
Then again, at 8 users, why even have an in-house messaging server?
Comment by Nathan T. Freeman — June 15, 2009 @ 3:13 am
Could it be that it was the CEO who got the iPhone… Scarry!
Comment by Kjeld — June 15, 2009 @ 6:59 am
@5 – I wondered about that too Kjeld, but it turned out that he was just one of the senior consultants.
Comment by Mike Burford — June 15, 2009 @ 9:08 am
I have been watching a few video’s about Apple’s success with the iPhone. It has really taken off and there are countless applications available for it. If everyone else is doing application development for the iPhone, then this should be a good indication that IBM needs to also be quick to the market. Imagine if IBM had beaten Microsoft to support the iPhone, I wonder how many small business would have migrated to Lotus Domino Server?
Comment by Vaughan Rivett — June 15, 2009 @ 11:00 am
@2 “Customers just get tired of waiting for things they consider necessary” and MS is delivering on time ? i don´t think so.
Comment by Palmi — June 15, 2009 @ 11:44 am
Mac fool, hope he likes Entourage.
But no he is using the emulator.
Financial companies don’t care about money.
ACT still does work with Domino by the way.
Comment by Keith Brooks — June 15, 2009 @ 2:26 pm
@9 Keith Brooks
Snow Leopard does have support for Microsoft Exchange. That’s just a point of interest. I am not endorsing it – do I make myself clear?
Comment by Vaughan Rivett — June 15, 2009 @ 8:33 pm
I can only applaud on any customer who is brave enough to migrate if their current product does not deliver. It is the best answer you can give a vendor. If that vendor is IBM so be it. In theory this could also work the other way around.
Comment by Henning Heinz — June 17, 2009 @ 10:41 pm
@11 – I agree totally Henning, but where do you draw the line on determining whether the product delivers or not? I would suggest that it isn’t for one user (albeit I suppose you could argue that in an 8 person company this equates to a 12.5% stake) who has to be different in terms of his technology setup/requirements from everyone else in the office.
Comment by Mike Burford — June 20, 2009 @ 2:54 pm