While many companies are switching away from Lotus Notes to Google Apps, I often wonder whether the IT departments have the necessary skills to enable this to happen smoothly.
As such, it left me wondering whether there are ever specific jobs advertised for this sort of thing.
Well, there are it seems.
So, what skills are required? I suppose a strong knowledge of Lotus Notes itself would be invaluable. After all, Google uses a completely different system. It is cloud-based to start with. Lotus Notes is a traditional program that needs to be installed on a computer.
Knowledge of Google Apps is probably essential, particularly things such as Gmail, GDocs and the Calendar.
There are programs available nowadays that will transfer information stored on Lotus Notes to Google Apps, but I should imagine that unless you know what you are doing, then making use of an expert consultant would benefit any business.
So, while cloud is certainly getting rid of what were traditional IT jobs, there maybe other opportunities coming on stream.
Lotus Notes, however, while diminishing, is not disappearing that quickly. In fact, there are a number of programs available that are aimed at helping businesses who, for whatever reason, do not wish to migrate to Google. For example, IBM has manufactured an application – Lotus Notes Traveller – that enables users of mobile devices to still use the software while on the go.
So, if you are not yet ready to join the rest of us on the cloud, then this could be just the ticket.
I would not venture to say many customers are moving to Google anything. While it may be seen that customers leave Notes mail, their apps rarely leave too.
In general the process to move from one mail system to another is not simple. You never realize just how much people rely on that calendar system or meeting room booking tool.
I have worked with Google, MS and other partners but rarely do i find people that understand messaging or what is involved in SMTP efforts or TLS or various nuances of POP/IMAP.
In almost every situation where a customer came to us and said they want to look at Google, they gave up because it is not a corporate solution. Consumer yes and if you ONLY want mail that works, although the sometimes you can have it offline sometimes you can’t frustrates people.
Companies rely on standards to make their world flow. Yes, sometimes they may stick to older standards, but they have their reasons why they use IE6 still.
In any migration you need an SME who understands the prior system and can help map it to the new one because the new one almost never has any understanding of the old one.
I get called out to help Google and Microsoft partners with Lotus clients because of all the things these new vendors don’t know, amazing how many can know AD but yet have no understanding of LDAP.
Recently a company that had left Notes for Gmail just came back to Notes.
Not saying the grass is greener on the other side, just cut differently.
Bad admins for Notes will turn into bad admins for Exchange or Gmail. But with Gmail you have no scapegoat anymore. Blame Google for anything and everything. But how long will your employees like to hear that answer? How long till management admits letting someone else drive is not what they prefer?