Migrating from Lotus Notes/Domino to Google Apps – #LeavingLotus

Editor's note: We're pleased to welcome guest blogger Michael Cohn, CEO of Cloud Sherpas, who is sharing his perspectives on switching from Lotus Notes to Google Apps. Cloud Sherpas is a Google partner that helps mid-size and large enterprises get the most out of Google Apps.

Cloud Sherpas specializes in moving clients off legacy, on-premise messaging systems and has a strong track record of successful deployments. The company will co-host a morning workshop – Leaving Lotus: Making the Switch from Lotus Notes/Domino to Google Apps – on Thursday, August 13 in Atlanta, Georgia.

For those of you who can't make it, the Q&A portion will be broadcast live and questions will be taken over twitter.

I first learned about Google Apps for Your Domain in mid 2007, before the term "cloud computing" entered the industry lexicon. Back then Google Apps represented the next big thing in IT – the promise of enterprise computing in the cloud.

Two years and one recession later, Google Apps is an enterprise-ready alternative for IT leaders who are frustrated with the traditional cycle of software license negotiations, complex upgrade deployments, and paying for unused maintenance contracts.

Since founding Cloud Sherpas over a year ago, we have guided dozens of large organizations from legacy, on-premise messaging infrastructures to the Google Apps cloud. The value proposition for each of our customers has been different. Some are driven by end user productivity gains, others by cost savings and IT simplification.

Jay Kenney, CIO at Lincoln Property Company, told us his decision to migrate 950 GroupWise users to Google Apps was influenced by ROI, the rich feature-set Google Apps delivers to his users, and was consistent with Lincoln's strategic Business Technology roadmap. Another Cloud Sherpas customer recently collapsed four Exchange servers and three domains into one Google Apps account, making it easier for their IT group to support the company's growth-through-acquisition strategy. And for one southeastern university with over 50,000 accounts, switching to Google Apps provides an unmatched end-user experience, giving students and alumni a greatly improved, modern messaging platform.

Interest in Google Apps is particularly strong in businesses still running Lotus Notes/Domino. Users in these organizations have been complaining about outdated tools for years, and IT leaders, frustrated with IBM's software lifecycle and pressured by shrinking IT budgets, are challenging the status quo. Many of these organizations, however, have large investments in the Lotus platform, and concerns about how to effectively evaluate, plan, test and migrate their deeply integrated environments.

We understand the plight of Lotus customers. Our professional services team has decades of experience designing and maintaining large enterprise Notes/Domino infrastructures, as well as countless nights in data centers migrating Lotus data to other competing platforms.

If you're an IT leader managing a large Lotus environment, we hope you'll join us on Thursday, August 13 in Atlanta as Cloud Sherpas co-hosts Leaving Lotus - Making the Switch from Lotus Notes/Domino to Google Apps. We'll be joined by Google, Binary Tree and Ferris Research, all on-hand to share their perspective on why your organization should consider making the switch.

If you can't make it to Atlanta, you can still participate. We're going to broadcast the Q&A portion of our live seminar online and will be taking your questions over twitter. Just tweet your Lotus Notes to Google Apps questions or concerns with the hashtag #LeavingLotus and register to listen in Thursday, August 13 to the live responses.

– Michael Cohn, CEO, Cloud Sherpas

Posted by Michelle Lisowski, Google Apps team

Find customer stories and research product information on our resource sites for current users of Microsoft Exchange and Lotus Notes/Domino.