Location : Cleveland, OH
Dear Ed:
For more years than I care to remember, I have been working with a client to upgrade their R4.6.7 Lotus Notes/Domino environment to the latest release. Every year, I send them the Passport Advantage upgrade information and every year they decide that they will stay on R4.6.7. Even though they can't recieve HTML mail, they have no spam protection, they have issues with the old SMTPIBWQ and SMTPOBWQ databases, and they hate the Webmail interface. I have shown them the new features, expounded on the better spam controls, shown them the new Notes client interface, and the new iNotes interface.
Three times last week, I was fighting the corruption in the SMTPOBWQ database and the fact that they were having issues sending messages with attachments (which could also have been tracked to issues with their network). It would work for a day, then go down the dumper. They wanted a few options, like moving to Exchange or upgrading Notes/Domino. Of course, I was lobbying for the upgrade, since they wouldn't need to purchase new hardware, could keep their existing mail files, and give them a few options to upgrade their Notes clients. I provided them with another Passport Advantage quote, which I worked on heavily with my aggregator to get them the best price possible.
On Thursday, in a fit of passion, they moved to . . . neither Notes nor Exchange. They opted to use their free webmail accounts with their web hosting company and now they are using POP/IMAP for their mail. Yeah, now they have HTML mail and a slick webmail interface, but they aren't too sure of spam or anti-virus protection. Someone else is now responsible for their mail system, a company that has a lot of other customers to worry about. Will they get good support? Will their mail be scanned and protected? Will those definitions be up to date? I don't know and I don't know if they do, either.
Any way, it's hard to help when they don't/can't keep up with the maintenance. Everything that they complained about was fixed/updated/improved in subsequent releases. And yet, there they sat on R4.6.7. From a totally budgetary viewpoint, it is hard to compete against "free." And those POP/IMAP addresses are free, at least in terms of cold, hard cash and in relation to either Notes/Domino or Exchange.
So, while we didn't lose to Exchange, we did lose a Notes customer.
I am very sorry.
Regards,
Gregg
For more years than I care to remember, I have been working with a client to upgrade their R4.6.7 Lotus Notes/Domino environment to the latest release. Every year, I send them the Passport Advantage upgrade information and every year they decide that they will stay on R4.6.7. Even though they can't recieve HTML mail, they have no spam protection, they have issues with the old SMTPIBWQ and SMTPOBWQ databases, and they hate the Webmail interface. I have shown them the new features, expounded on the better spam controls, shown them the new Notes client interface, and the new iNotes interface.
Three times last week, I was fighting the corruption in the SMTPOBWQ database and the fact that they were having issues sending messages with attachments (which could also have been tracked to issues with their network). It would work for a day, then go down the dumper. They wanted a few options, like moving to Exchange or upgrading Notes/Domino. Of course, I was lobbying for the upgrade, since they wouldn't need to purchase new hardware, could keep their existing mail files, and give them a few options to upgrade their Notes clients. I provided them with another Passport Advantage quote, which I worked on heavily with my aggregator to get them the best price possible.
On Thursday, in a fit of passion, they moved to . . . neither Notes nor Exchange. They opted to use their free webmail accounts with their web hosting company and now they are using POP/IMAP for their mail. Yeah, now they have HTML mail and a slick webmail interface, but they aren't too sure of spam or anti-virus protection. Someone else is now responsible for their mail system, a company that has a lot of other customers to worry about. Will they get good support? Will their mail be scanned and protected? Will those definitions be up to date? I don't know and I don't know if they do, either.
Any way, it's hard to help when they don't/can't keep up with the maintenance. Everything that they complained about was fixed/updated/improved in subsequent releases. And yet, there they sat on R4.6.7. From a totally budgetary viewpoint, it is hard to compete against "free." And those POP/IMAP addresses are free, at least in terms of cold, hard cash and in relation to either Notes/Domino or Exchange.
So, while we didn't lose to Exchange, we did lose a Notes customer.
I am very sorry.
Regards,
Gregg
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