Commonwealth Times: Gmail replaces Lotus Notes at VCU09/18/2009 12:23:23 PMA concern for many students is that old e-mails in their Lotus Notes account have not migrated to their new myVCUmail account. This means accessing previous communications requires logging into two separate e-mail accounts. David said Technology Services is currently working with Gmail to use a beta product that would transfer old e-mails to the Gmail account, but he said they are still working out some problems. Regardless, the Lotus Notes server will be turned off on June 30, 2010.
That wasn't the only issue that VCU had to address, however. A 3rd party tool, which integrated with Lotus Notes, does not work with Gmail, and because of this, some e-mails were not delivered. A policy statement requires that some specific types of communication be done through Lotus Notes. Officials are working on changing that policy. Finally, VCU will remain in a mixed messaging environment until they have migrated faculty accounts to Gmail.
The "why's" of this migration are not known to me, however that won't stop me from making some assumptions:
- VCU was running an old version of Notes/Domino. At a minimum, I will say Release 6.5
- VCU students and staff were clamoring for access using iPhones, Blackberry's, and other smartphones. And they really wanted their Contacts and calendars.
- People were commenting about the Lotus Notes UI, in both Lotus Notes and iNotes (see the first item)
- Not knowing about DAOS or design/document compression, disk space was being chewed up at an alarming rate
- While I am optimistic that they were running Domino on Linux, I would say that if they weren't, they were concerned about licensing costs for their mail servers and didn't consider that Domino runs on other, cost effective server platforms
- They may not have considered other office productivity tools, like Lotus Symphony or OpenOffice, which are free. And one of those is integrated in Notes 8.x.
- They weren't taking advantage of Domino clustering
- They wanted to implement instant messaging, but didn't realize that Sametime Entry would be a good, cost effective choice. And would integrate with the Notes client, iNotes, and smartphones. Or that they could leverage Sametime on their website.
- They were unaware of LotusLive as a cloud choice
- They only saw Notes as mail and never considered that they had a excellent development platform. Or that they could train their own pool of developers using IBM University Relations
- There was no Notes/Domino Evangelist on site
- They never sent anyone to Lotusphere, a User Group meeting, or a Lotus specific conference
- VCU is running 8.0.x and 8.5 and we are participating in the 8.5.1 Beta program
- VCU is using Blackberries, iPhones and other smart devices
- VCU uses Notes, IMAP, iNotes
- VCU is currently running design/document compression and is in the process of implementing DAOS
- VCU is currently running Domino on Solaris, but that is not why the students were transitioned to Gmail
- VCU has been running Domino clustering for many years
- VCU is aware of LotusLive as a cloud choice
- VCU has an extensive number of Lotus Domino Application
- VCU has several Notes/Domino Evangelists on site
- VCU has sent individuals to Lotusphere and other Lotus group meetings since 1997.
- The students were moved to Google Apps for Education as a cost savings measure for the university which is state funded institution, and as a means of providing lifetime email accounts for the students. Google Apps for Education is free
- LotusLive is not, and at the time did not offer email. Students have an entirely different perspective regarding their needs for email
Link: Commonwealth Times: Gmail replaces Lotus Notes at VCU
Comment posted by Richard Moy09/18/2009 02:17:50 PM
Homepage: http://www.dominointerface.com
Some how I bet that the Domino servers will still be running after June 30, 2010. Since he called it the Lotus Notes server, it would not surprise me that he is on a version even older than Domino 6.5. Why is that?
Comment posted by Keith Brooks09/18/2009 02:41:37 PM
Homepage: http://www.vanessabrooks.com
Greg talk to marie it's hers
Comment posted by Duffbert09/18/2009 02:42:53 PM
Homepage: http://www.duffbert.com
Um... actually most of the assumptions would be wrong, and SHE (Marie Scott) works at VCU and is quite aware of the Lotus environment. 
Comment posted by Marie Scott09/18/2009 02:47:14 PM
Homepage: http://www.bleedyellow.com/blogs/crashtestchix
1) VCU is running 8.0.x and 8.5 and we are participating in the 8.5.1 Beta program
2) VCU is using Blackberries, iPhones and other smart devices
3) VCU uses Notes, IMAP, iNotes
4) VCU is currently running design/document compression and is in the process of implementing DAOS
5) VCU is currently running Domino on Solaris, but that is not why the students were transitioned to Gmail
6) VCU has been running Domino clustering for many years.
7) VCU is aware of LotusLive as a cloud choice.
8) VCU has an extensive number of Lotus Domino Application.
9) VCU has several Notes/Domino Evangelists on site.
10) VCU has sent individuals to Lotusphere and other Lotus group meetings since 1997.
The students were moved to Google Apps for Education as a cost savings measure for the university which is state funded institution, and as a means of providing lifetime email accounts for the students. Google Apps for Education is free.
LotusLive is not, and at the time did not offer email. Students have an entirely different perspective regarding their needs
for email, and perhaps you should delve deeper before making rash assumptions next time.
Comment posted by Marie Scott09/18/2009 03:25:05 PM
Homepage: http://www.bleedyellow.com/blogs/crashtestchix
Additionally -- faculty/staff are not being moved to Google, this was a misquote on the part of the Commonwealth Times. There are too many misquoted statements to mention here.
Comment posted by Gregg Eldred09/18/2009 03:37:48 PM
Homepage: http://www.ns-tech.com/blog/geldred.nsf
@Marie - Today is not my day. I lost two "bets" on my resolutions to a Notes ToDo issue and Sametime Contacts. One cost me a mint chocolate chip milk shake (high stakes, you know?). And then, using some traditional reasons an organization moves from Lotus to another platform, I comment on VCU.
Which, as you might guess, I had no idea that I might know someone that works there. A simple search of LinkedIn might have clued me in (you are, after all, one of my Contacts). 
I appreciate the time it took you to comment on this post to set me straight. I apologize if I have offended you or anyone else at VCU. Next time (and you know that there will be a next time), I will spend a little extra time looking for additional information.
Comment posted by Charles Robinson09/18/2009 03:43:42 PM
Homepage: http://www.cubert.net
Wow, that hurts all the way over here.
Comment posted by Henning Heinz09/19/2009 04:20:26 AM
So VCU did everything right with Domino and still moved all students to Google. If I think about it I would really prefer the first version instead of Marie Scott's. I mean they have a perfect Notes and Domino infrastructure (at least that is how it was described) and still move their students to Google. And finally all agree that they save real money with this although they now run 2 platforms. Well then so be it.
I did not understand the "students have an entirely different perspective regarding their needs for email" either.
Finally I am a bit worried because the strategy that people will later use what they already know did work quite well for companies like Microsoft. Now even well managed sites move. Why should not so well managed Domino installations stay with the platform (at least in the not-for-profit space)?
Comment posted by Duffbert09/19/2009 07:27:01 AM
Homepage: http://www.duffbert.com
@HH: For a perspective on student email needs, read this: http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/whoops_students_going_google_get_to_read_each_others_email.php. Students don't seem to be quite as freaked out when their email is down for five minutes (or five hours, or even possibly a full day). I think we can all agree that most large businesses still view email as an enterprise-critical application that can't have outages that measure beyond minutes.
And yes, given they are a university they *would* save money since GAPE is free. Notes client/access licenses are not free (so far as I know), so shifting students off to GAPE would reduce the need to purchase those seats from Lotus. What it *doesn't* do is reduce the need for IT support for those students, as well as making sure you can stay on top of any GAPE changes that Google may slip in without telling you.
The main issue here as I see it is the chasm between what you're "promised" with GAPE (ease of use, very low cost, etc.) vs. the reality (little support, no control over changes, etc.)
Comment posted by Henning Heinz09/19/2009 11:00:25 AM
Thank you for the link. Still I am a surprised that a good working Domino platform is not compelling enough for keeping it (even with all the cost savings /TCO reduction that have been introduced with R8).
Comment posted by Marie Scott09/19/2009 11:47:46 AM
Homepage: http://www.bleedyellow.com/blogs/crashtestchix
@Henning - as Duffbert pointed out, GAFE is free. Notes licenses for students and faculty are free. However, the infracstructure is not. When the university is undergoing budget cuts of 15-20% while still required to provide academic excellence, difficult decisions are made. GAFE provides students what they requested - a lifetime account - which could not be provided given the costs to run a similar Domino infrastructure. Given that we are the largest university in Virginia with more than 70,000 active accounts in our Domino directory, you do the math...could you provide 6 gb of clustered Domino server space for free?
Comment posted by Henning Heinz09/20/2009 08:28:06 AM
Marie,
ironically I once had a bigfoot for life e-mail address too. I am still alive but my address is gone.
On topic.
I do not question your decision. It might be the correct move in your situation. Many companies and institutions are evaluating their infrastructure. As always I want to learn something for my own business. That is if I face similar situations I would like to know as much as possible about the advantages and disadvantages of other platforms.
Unfortunately as you describe it, Google Apps just makes sense. I mean Gregg's version would have been much easier because it described a poor Domino platform competing with Google Apps. Now we learned that this is not the case and it makes it even harder.
From a Domino perspective I would say that this does emphasize the importance that IBM has to deliver even more out of the box application functionality and further streamline its UI components (like with the iNotes Light/Ultralight interface).
Maybe it would even make sense to develop a campus edition of IBM Lotus software that bundles common functionality with the software. Learning space once was a huge topic for Lotus.
I mean 70.000 people that, after finishing their study start working and some becoming decision makers or starting their own companies are a real asset.
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Homepage: http://www.amerkiacasino.de/
I would have loved to see your presentations at the library Gregg. Maybe next time somebody can video them and stick them on YouTube.This should help users find the tool they need faster. Or you can simply search against the site. You can follow just the tools @EverythingTwitr outside of the RSS feed to the site!
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