Migrating IBM Lotus Notes and Domino to the Cloud:

Selecting Microsoft
versus Google

Published: december 2010

Table of Contents

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Microsoft Office 365 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Google Apps Premier Edition (GAPE) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Email and Calendaring Migration and Coexistence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Migration and Coexistence Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
The End Users Migration Experience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
End User Adoption . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Microsoft Outlook Integration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Unified Messaging, Instant Messaging, and User Presence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Offline Capabilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Migrating Applications and Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Application Platform Comparison . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Application Data Migration Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Full Lotus Notes/Domino Retirement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Links and Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Microsoft Links . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Customer Case Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Microsoft Migration Partners . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Introduction
More and more users of legacy IBM Lotus Notes and Lotus Domino systems today are considering migrating to other
systems. The advent of cloud computing makes this migration much easier to consider. For Lotus Notes/Domino users,
cloud-based, hosted messaging and application services can provide the latest technologies along with an attractive
alternative to costly upgrades. But if your organization is considering migrating to the cloud, you should carefully examine
which hosted services can most easily inherit existing technology investments, and identify tradeoffs that might adversely
impact IT teams and end users.
This white paper showcases the migration approaches and challenges involved in moving from IBM Lotus Notes and Lotus
Domino to either of two cloud-based options: Microsoft Office 365 (the predecessor of Microsoft Business Productivity
Online Suite, or BPOS), and Google Apps Premier Edition. We will clarify the differences between the two options, and
describe their benefits in detail to help you make an informed decision about them.

Microsoft Office 365

Google Apps Premier Edition (GAPE)

The successor to BPOS, Office 365 is available in beta form

today and will be released as a product suite in 2011. Office
365 has a variety of services to meet your needs, which
include:

Google Apps offers reliable, secure web-based office tools

for any size business. GAPE provides the following hosted
software services:

Microsoft Office: The worlds leading productivity

tool on the desktop (Office Professional Plus) and on
the web (Office Web Apps) now seamlessly connected
and delivered with cloud services for a comprehensive productivity experience across the PC, phone, and
browser
Microsoft Exchange Online: Cloud-based email,
calendar and contacts with the current anti-virus and
anti-spam solutions. Includes the ability to get email
on virtually any mobile phone and options for voicemail, unified messaging and archiving

Microsoft SharePoint Online: Cloud-based service

for creating sites to connect colleagues, partners and
customers. Includes enterprise social networking and
customization options

Microsoft Lync Online: Cloud-based instant messaging (IM), presence, and online meeting experiences with screen sharing, and voice conferencing and
videoconferencing

Gmail: A web-based email service that lets a business

run their email by using Googles systems

Google Calendar: A web-based service for managing

personal, corporate, and team calendars

Google Talk: Lets users communicate with each other

in real time through instant messaging

Google Docs: Provides web-based tools for creating

and collaborating on documents, spreadsheets, and
presentations

Google Sites: Lets users create web sites to publish

internally within a company or externally

Google Video: Lets users upload videos to a shared

repository and view them through a web-based player

Google Message Security: Lets administrators create

rules for handling messages containing specific content and file attachments

Migrating IBM Lotus Notes and Domino to the Cloud: Selecting Microsoft versus Google

Email and Calendaring Migration and Coexistence

IBM Lotus Notes/Domino uses a proprietary message storage and calendaring format, so migrating its data to the cloud
with complete fidelity is difficult. During migration, Lotus Notes/Domino may have to coexist with the cloud-based service
for months, depending on the size of the organization. Maintaining coexistence between Lotus Notes/Domino and the
cloud-based service is paramount during this transition period so that everyone can still send messages, reserve conference
rooms, schedule meetings, and perform other tasks.

Migration and Coexistence Tools

Microsoft provides state-of-the-art email and calendaring
migration and coexistence tools to help you move IBM
Lotus Notes email and calendar data quickly and efficiently
to Office 365. Microsoft and its partners have an excellent
track record in preparing organizations for the transition
from IBM Lotus Notes and other messaging systems to
Exchange Online. Microsoft has developed a comprehensive, well-tested Microsoft Migration Planning Process to
minimize the impact on Lotus Notes/Domino users during
migration. This migration process is successful without
manual intervention more than 98 percent of the time, with
safeguards that enable Microsoft to identify and correct
problems before they become visible to end users. The CIO
of Coca Cola said:

In a five-month
timeframe, we migrated
roughly 30,000 people
to a hosted [Microsoft]
solution, without
impacting their business
or interrupting their
day-to-day operations.

Many Microsoft partners offer services and tools for

enterprises that want to move to hosted services. For example, BinaryTree offers a speedy migration service called
Weekend Express that can move up to 10,000 Lotus
Notes user accounts along with all their message data to
Office 365 over a single weekend. BinaryTree also provides
coexistence solutions that enable free/busy lookups for
Lotus Notes calendars, integration processing for workflow
applications that send custom emails, and middleware
intelligence to transform recurring calendar invitations and
other complex messaging items so that they work correctly
between IBM Lotus Notes and Exchange.
Google, by contrast, provides only lightweight tools for
converting Lotus Notes/Lotus Domino email messages and
some contact and calendar data to Google Apps. Googles
tools do not support archived mail, contacts, meeting
rooms, tasks, and advanced calendar items in Lotus Notes.
IT personnel or end users must install the Google Apps
Sync application, or use forms in admin-generated email
messages, and then move much of their data manually.
Google provides also offers only simple coexistence
capabilities during migration. For example, users cannot
handle all meeting requests or business-process workflow
messages during migration added additional cost to any
transition. Lotus Notes applications that send messages
including workflow buttons, embedded forms, or doclinks
will be unusable when delivered to Gmail.
For a side-by-side comparison of how well email data
migrates from Lotus Notes to Exchange versus Google
Apps Premier Edition, see the table on the next page.

Esat Sezar, CIO, Coca-Cola Enterprises

Migrating IBM Lotus Notes and Domino to the Cloud: Selecting Microsoft versus Google

Email Data Migration from Lotus Notes to Exchange Online versus Google Apps Premiere Edition
Migrated content
or feature

Exchange Google
Online
Apps

Gmail Differences

E mail (messages
with read state)

Yes

Yes

Email messages are automatically combined into threads based on

subject line.

Mail folders

Yes

Partial

Folders become labels, and names are end-truncated if over 40

characters.

Attachments and
rich formatting

Yes

Partial

Executable attachments (including self-extracting zip files) are not

copied. Rich formatting layout is altered in the conversion to HTML.

Flags, reminders,
and importance

Yes

No

Flags become stars. Follow-up reminders are lost.

Inbox rules

Yes

No

Not migrated to Gmail

Signatures

Yes

No

Not migrated to Gmail

Delegations and
sharing

Yes

No

Delegations and sharing settings dont import to Gmail

Encrypted mail

Yes

No

Lotus Notes users must decrypt all email before the migration to
either BPOS or GAPE.

Calendar
(all calendars)

Yes

Yes

Free and busy status

Yes

Yes

Attendees and
responses

Yes

Yes

Event reminders

Yes

Yes

Attachments and
formatting

Yes

No

Attachments are stripped from calendar events, and rich formatting

in calendar events does not import.

Personal Contacts

Yes

Yes

Users must synchronize their personal address books before migration.

Personal groups and

D/Ls

Yes

Yes

Attachments, notes,
and links

Yes

No

Global Contacts
(GAL)

Yes

Yes

Tasks

Yes

No

Attachments are stripped. Links are no longer clickable. Notes larger

than 16k are truncated.

Migrating IBM Lotus Notes and Domino to the Cloud: Selecting Microsoft versus Google

The End Users Migration Experience

Migration to any new environment will almost always impact end users, but you can minimize that impact by choosing the
right hosted service provider. During migration to Office 365, Microsofts tools help you move end-user email and calendaring content with full fidelity and provide a viable coexistence experience for messaging and calendaring. Coexistence with
Office 365 during a transition period doesnt require you to redevelop or remediate any IBM Lotus Notes/Lotus Domino
applications. Even after their email is moved to Office 365, end users can continue to use Lotus Notes to reserve conference
rooms for meetings and interact with workflow messages generated by business-process applications.
The experience of ends users during and after migration from Lotus Notes/Domino to Google Apps can be unsatisfactory because there is no integrated coexistence for recurring calendar items, complex mail messages, or business process
workflow messages. Users must continue to check a secondary mailbox on Lotus Notes for any business-process messages
generated by applications. Whats more, unread messages are marked as read after the migration to Gmail, and users
cannot act upon Lotus Notes-specific content such as forms, buttons, and document links in Gmail messages. Whats more,
the default setting for all messages in Gmail is conversation viewthreading messages in an unorthodox manner, which
can frustrate many users.

End User Adoption

Office 365 provides users with the same familiar, easy-touse interface in Microsoft Excel, Word, PowerPoint, and
OneNote that users may already have on their desktops.
Users are usually already familiar with the tools and options
in these products from past experience, so they can get
started with them right away, rather than facing a potential
loss of productivity. These applications are also available
in online versions in Office 2010 Web Apps to help users
maximize their productivity when theyre away from their
desktops. Office 2010 Web Apps have the familiar Office
Fluent user interface and offer essential editing capabilities,
without loss of data or formatting.
With Office 365, IT can leverage role-based access controls
to help you save time and to lower operational costs
15-20% by reducing the burden on your IT staff. A new
role-based security model, self-service capabilities, and
the web-based Exchange Control Panel, let you delegate
common or specialized tasks to your users without giving
them full administrative rights or increasing help desk call
volume.

control over accounts. They cannot delegate tasks, and

anyone who has administrator access can decommission an
entire email service. Because of these and other problems,
organizations that use Google Apps have to train end users
and IT support staff, and reset expectations because of
reduced Google Apps functionality. Organizations must
also deal with risks from Google Labs applications, thirdparty widgets, and fixes that Google slipstreams into the
environment as unsupported installations.
To find out more about the many missing features and
file-fidelity problems that users experience in Google
Apps, visit the following page, and in the Unified Business
Platform section, click Discover how Gone Google
could impact your IT Landscape:
http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/businessproductivity/
why-microsoft/Pages/google-apps_20100816.aspx#fbid=XJ4SNPkSt9

By contrast, Google provides very basic functionality

with limited capabilities for users and administrators. For
example, Google Apps converts any Office or OpenOffice
document into HTML, which permanently alters content,
often removing critical elements such as charts without
warning the user.
With Google Apps, IT administrators have either full or no

Migrating IBM Lotus Notes and Domino to the Cloud: Selecting Microsoft versus Google

Microsoft Outlook Interoperability

Microsoft Outlook is the most popular email client in
organizations of all sizes. With Office 365, users have access
to mail and calendaring via a rich client, the web, or phone.
Organizations that are used to a rich-client experience,
including integrated off-line access for email and calendaring, should understand the support requirements for
Outlook with Google Apps.

Alerts. Users typically want to know when new email

messages and instant messages arrive. Unlike with
Outlook and Exchange, if Gmail isnt open in browser,
the user will not receive these alerts. The customer
must also deploy Google Talk to receive this functionality.

Presence. Information that shows whether users are

free or busy is extremely helpful when users need
to schedule meetings and contact other users. With
Gmail, users or IT teams have to deploy and configure
two separate utilities from Google to obtain presence
information.

Google heavily publicizes Gmails integration with Outlook.

But Gmail only partially synchronizes data with Outlook,
and in some cases, requires users to manage two different
inboxes. Among other features, Gmail is also missing:

Robust security features. Gmail does not offer enterprise-grade security features such as Digital Rights
Management, message encryption, digital signatures,
and policy-based email management, which Exchange
with Outlook includes at extra cost.

Outlook data types. A Gmail account will not store

in the cloud data such as Outlook Categories, Tasks,
Notes, Journal Entries, rules, signatures, delivery
receipts, importance levels, follow-up flags and reminders, meeting invitation attachments, and other
meeting invitation content such as images, links, and
bold text. This presents a risk of data loss, as the data
is stored only on client machines.

Offline features. Offline features that Outlook supports such as out-of-office responses, recalling sent
messages, recovering deleted items, and personal
distribution lists do not synchronize with Gmail.
Scheduling features. Gmail does not offer suggested
meeting times, conference room availability, optional
attendees and other scheduling features that Outlook
includes.

Access to a Global Address List (GAL). Gmail does

not offer access to data such as additional contact
phone numbers, company name, organizational
hierarchy, employee titles, group addresses, and outof-domain contacts that users can find in the GAL in
Outlook.

Other Outlook features. Gmail does not provide

document preview and many other features that come
with Outlook.

In addition, supporting Outlook synchronization with

Google requires installing a separate tool, Google Apps
Sync for Outlook. For IT, this means deploying client-side
connectors on every PC as well as setting up a server to
synchronize the companys LDAP directory with Google
Apps for a Global Address Book. Besides Google Apps Sync
for Outlook, to provide Gmail with the same functionality
that you get at no additional cost in Exchange Online and
Outlook, you could require the following extra applications
and browser add-ons and plug-ins:

Exchange to Google Apps Migrator for bulk migration

of email messages from Exchange to Gmail

DirSync or another application to synchronize the

Gmail directory with Active Directory

MyOneLogin or a similar identity service to provide

single-sign-on to Active Directory

Postini to provide message archiving

Google Chrome to use the latest features in HTML

version 5.

Migrating IBM Lotus Notes and Domino to the Cloud: Selecting Microsoft versus Google

Unified Messaging, Instant Messaging,

and User Presence
Microsoft uses instant messaging functionality in an
innovative and integrated way: IM functionality is both a
messaging vehicle and a presence indicator in Outlook and
other Microsoft applications. The presence indicator shows
who is online and whether they are available or busy at a
given time. Microsoft applications track the presence of
users who are part of an organizations Active Directory infrastructure in all communications and documents. Without
leaving an application, users can click a presence indicator
to invite people to chat. Features like the presence indicator are possible because Microsoft integrates applications
from the ground up to improve user productivity.
Thanks to Microsoft federated services, users can even see
presence indicators for any partners and customers with
whom their organization has a federation agreement. This
further enhances productivity by letting people securely
communicate with people in organizations associated with
their own.
Many IBM Lotus Notes customers have implemented the
Lotus Sametime infrastructure on-premises to provide
instant messaging and user presence capabilities. Google
offers a basic IM and PC to PC or web-based calling
system called Google Talk, which is available as a standalone Windows application. Built on the open Extensible
Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP) for IM, Google
Talk connects with other XMPP-based IM networks so users
can chat beyond the bounds of their organization.

Offline Capabilities
Microsoft applications present security-enhanced offline
capabilities. Outlook users have the same client experience
while disconnected from the Internet. Office users can
make changes to documents offline and synchronize just
the delta updates when they are online by using SharePoint
Workspace 2010. This allows users to take full SharePoint
list types, including: Discussion, Announcements, Links, and
Custom Lists offline. Even workflows can be taken offline
so that every time a user synchronizes it will correctly
trigger any workflows that are idle and listening to activity.
Microsoft Business Connectivity Services (BCS) allow lineof-business application data to be pulled offline. Combine
BCS with the support for InfoPath forms inside of Outlook
and SharePoint Workspace 2010, and users can work with
all corresponding business data and applications whether
online or offline.
By contrast, Google Apps lack of offline capabilities are a
big gap in Googles offerings. Google Apps users are much
less productive when they cannot connect to the Internet.
Googles answer to this problem is Google Gears, a browser
add-in for which Google abandoned support on May 4,
2010 and which the GAPE SLA does not support. GAPE
provides offline caching for mail and calendaring ONLY. All
creation and updates to documents, spreadsheets, or presentations must be done while connected to the Internet.
Google Gears must be deployed for every user, and data is
stored locally in an unencrypted state.

However, Google Talk does not integrate with other Google

products, so it cannot be used as a central management
point for user presence. Unlike in Microsoft applications,
with Google Talk, there is no automated set of rules
for how to communicate with contacts based on their
presence.

Migrating IBM Lotus Notes and Domino to the Cloud: Selecting Microsoft versus Google

Migrating Applications and Data

Document repositories, itemized tracking systems, and forms-based business process applications also run on IBM Lotus
Notes/Domino servers. To transition these applications to the cloud, capabilities such as built-in workflow, role-based
security and business logic must be redeveloped and supported. Googles strategy document for transitioning IBM Lotus
Notes applications states that if an organizations migration costs dont justify an appropriate return on investment, or users and business processes depend on a small set of Notes applications in a way that complicates migration, then continuing
to support a Lotus Notes installation may be the logical path.
If you want to transition away from IBM Lotus Notes completely, you must consider the custom applications running in
your environment. Many organizations that have moved their email to Exchange Online have hesitated to move their Lotus
Notes applications to SharePoint. But the release of SharePoint 2010 has changed this dramatically. Microsoft has added a
great deal of functionality in customization and development to help organizations migrate to SharePoint from IBM Lotus
Notes. For instance, organizations can use SharePoint Designer, a free downloadable application, to customize hosted
SharePoint sites without writing any code. Using SharePoint Designer, developers can create custom workflows, extensively
customize pages, edit master pages, work with complex web parts, add custom action buttons, and more.

Application Platform Comparison

Both Microsoft and Google offer application-development
environments as target platforms for IBM Lotus Notes
applications. But only Microsoft lets you deploy applications both on premises and in the cloud. You can deploy
SharePoint business applications in the cloud, on premises,
or in a hybrid mannerboth in the cloud and on-premises.
SharePoint 2010 offers development capabilities that
require no coding, and advanced content-management
features such as Managed Metadata to address the business needs of customers.
Another new feature that will be particularly popular with
Lotus Notes developers is the ability to specify simple input
validation formulas for data fields, including the messages
that should be displayed if the validation tests fail.
By comparison, Google does not provide an on-premises
option for deploying business applications. All applications
must be redeveloped in their hosted services environment
and supported in the cloud. If you cannot re-platform your
IBM Lotus Notes applications to Googles hosted services
environment due to redevelopment costs, security concerns, or data-management issues, then you will likely need
to retain your IBM Lotus Notes environment.
Googles version of an application development platform is
a mixture of solutions, including Google Sites, Google Apps
Scripts, Google Spreadsheets, Google Gadgets, and Google
App Engine. For custom development, you must rebuild
all IBM Lotus Notes business applications from scratch,
using HTML for forms, plus standard Java technologies,
including the JVM, Java servlets, and the Java programming
languageor any other language using a JVM-based
interpreter or compiler, such as JavaScript or Ruby.

Custom Forms Development

Redeveloping a Lotus Notes application requires redesigning the forms for creating and editing data records.
Microsoft InfoPath 2010 is a popular solution for building
data-entry forms for custom business applications. InfoPath
is designed for both advanced business users and developers, depending on the type of forms-based solution you
need. Many Lotus Notes customers see InfoPath as the
best choice for redesigning Lotus Notes forms that contain
user-friendly field layouts, integrated tables, non-trivial
data validation rules, and interactive functionality such as
hide-when formulas.
SharePoint 2010 also introduces a great way to simplify
data updates called InfoPath List Forms. This feature allows
developers and power users to use InfoPath forms as the
content editor for SharePoint list items. This mimics how
Lotus Notes applications work, with custom forms in which
to enter and display record data stored in the application.
There are two options for hosting custom forms within
the Google Apps environment, but neither is as flexible or
powerful as what you can do with SharePoint or InfoPath.
Both options use the basic Google Spreadsheets capability
to generate a form with data fields. The first option feed
the forms results directly into a spreadsheet repository in
Google Docs. A second option uses Google Sites to embed
the Google Spreadsheets form inside a custom location.

Migrating IBM Lotus Notes and Domino to the Cloud: Selecting Microsoft versus Google

Business Process Workflow

Lotus Notes workflows are almost always implemented as
code segments attached to various action buttons, form
events, and agents. By contrast, the Microsoft platform
encourages the use of declarative workflows expressed as
rules that even non-programmers can understand, enter,
and modify.
Declarative workflow capabilities have improved significantly in SharePoint 2010, with a much richer set of
out-of-the-box workflows to use in applications. Workflow
templates in SharePoint 2010 include an Approval Process,
a Collect Feedback review process, a Collect Signatures
review process, and a Disposition Approval workflow
for managing content lifecycles. Developers and even
end users can customize the out-of-the-box workflows if
needed, or design their own from scratch by using the new
capabilities in SharePoint Designer. These new workflows
can be created, tested, and deployed without writing any
code, and they can address most of the workflows in Lotus
Notes applications.
By contrast, any workflow capabilities in Google Apps must
be developed in Java and linked to HTML forms or forms
created within Google Spreadsheets.

Application Data Migration Tools

Full Lotus Notes/Domino Retirement

Transitioning an entire portfolio of IBM Lotus Notes items
to the cloud or an on-premises platform often requires
rebuilding highly customized, mission-critical businessprocess applications and migrating data to the target
platform. Some of these applications need the advanced
data-management features of a relational database, flexible
security models, and customizable user interface capabilities. If you cannot migrate these complex applications to
the cloud, you must continue to pay for the infrastructure
and support of IBM Lotus Notes in your environment.
Many mainstream business decision-makers may want
holistic hosted services that can accommodate custom
development of complex business applications. Google is
quickly building the disparate elements of the Google App
Engine (GAE), Google Gadgets, and Google Apps Scripts.
But how these solutions will be integrated and how they
will scale with the appropriate data management and
security levels is not clear. Google has not yet released a
clear roadmap for the future of the Google application
platform.
Microsoft, on the other hand, continues to release roadmaps that outline the future capabilities that SharePoint
2010 will bring to hosted-services offerings for content
management, simple item tracking, workflow and collaboration applications.

Once you have developed or redeveloped the application

in the target platform or identified the content management repository in the new environment, you must still
migrate application data to the new location. Microsoft has
many partners that can migrate IBM Lotus Notes application data to SharePoint, either on-premises or in the cloud.
These partners migration tools can directly provision
SharePoint sites and lists, and transition content with high
fidelity, including the author/editor identities as well as the
original creation dates associated with the data records.
In addition, they can move all content formatting intact
as well as the metadata tags, document links, and corresponding file attachments from the original application
repositories.

Microsoft is also creating a comprehensive cloud

environment in which you can develop highly scalable
custom applications: Windows Azure. This platform
consists of a group of powerful cloud technologies
that provide specific services to application developers.
Windows Azure provides a Windows-based environment
for running applications and storing data on servers in
Microsoft data centers. The components of the Windows
Azure platform are:
SQL Azure: Provides data services in the cloud based
on Microsoft SQL Server.
Windows Azure platform AppFabric: Provides cloud
services for connecting applications running in the
cloud or on premises.

Google, on the other hand, provides no such partner tools

for migrating data to a new application built on Google
Apps. Instead, you must write your own data migration
scripts by using the import APIs that Google supports.
These import options do not provide the same level of
data fidelity and content-mapping capabilities delivered by
Microsoft migration partners for Office 365.

Developers in the Windows Azure platform can build applications that use the Microsoft .NET Framework, unmanaged code, or other approaches. Developers can write
these applications in popular programming languages
such as C#, Visual Basic, C++, and Java, using Visual Studio
or another development tool. Developers can create web
applications, using technologies such as ASP.NET, Windows
Communication Foundation (WCF), and PHP, applications
that run as independent background processes, or applications that combine the two.

Migrating IBM Lotus Notes and Domino to the Cloud: Selecting Microsoft versus Google

10

Integration with On-Premises Application

Environment
Both Windows Azure applications and on-premises
applications can access the Windows Azure storage service,
and both do it in the same way: using a RESTful approach.
This service allows storing binary large objects (blobs),
provides queues for communication between components
of Windows Azure applications, and even offers a form of
tables with a simple query language. For applications that
need traditional relational storage, the Windows Azure
platform provides the SQL Azure Database for all relational
database functions. An application that uses the Windows
Azure platform can use any combination of these storage
options.
Running applications and storing data in the cloud can
have clear benefits. Rather than buying, installing, and
operating your own systems, for example, you rely on a
cloud provider to do this for you. Also, you pay only for the
computing and storage that you use, rather than maintaining extra servers only for peak loads. And if your applications are written correctly, they can scale tremendously
to take advantage of the enormous data centers that
Microsoft provides.

Just as IT organizations have had to adapt to the changes

brought by PCs, mobile devices, and other new platforms,
they now need to decide how to adapt to cloud platforms.
And just as Windows played a huge part in those earlier
shifts in computing, Windows Azure is poised to take an
important role in the new world of cloud computing. If
you are responsible for charting your organizations IT
path, it makes good sense to evaluate and understand the
Windows Azure environment.
By comparison, the Google App Engine is limited in its
enterprise capabilities. GAE lacks a true relational database
management system to provide robust RDBMS functionality. In addition, Google offers only limited support for the
GAE database APIs. And unlike Microsoft, which offers a
financially-backed Service Level Agreement for Windows
Azure, Google still offers no SLA for GAE, so if GAE is down,
you have no recourse for your lost time and money.

Migrating IBM Lotus Notes and Domino to the Cloud: Selecting Microsoft versus Google

11

Links and Resources

For more information about hosted service offerings from Microsoft, visit the following links and resources.

Microsoft Links

Microsoft Office 365: office365.microsoft.com

Business Productivity Online Standard Suite: www.microsoft.com/online/default.mspx
Microsoft Exchange Online: www.microsoft.com/online/exchange-online.mspx
Microsoft SharePoint Online: www.microsoft.com/online/sharepoint-online.mspx
Microsoft Office Communications Online: www.microsoft.com/online/office-communications-online.mspx
Microsoft Office Live Meeting: www.microsoft.com/online/office-live-meeting.mspx

Customer Case Studies

GlaxoSmithKline
The second largest pharmaceutical company in the world,
GlaxoSmithKline supplies a quarter of the worlds vaccines
and produces some of the leading prescription medicines
and consumer healthcare products.
Business Situation
GlaxoSmithKline needed to improve collaboration with
partners, to improve effectiveness in growing markets, to
move away from customized solutions, and to lower the
cost of operations and investments.
Solution
GlaxoSmithKline chose to replace the Lotus Notes,
Domino, and Postini services with the Microsoft Business
Productivity Online Suite including Microsoft Exchange
Online, Microsoft Office SharePoint Online, Microsoft
Office Communications Online, Microsoft Office Live
Meeting and the Microsoft Deskless Worker Suite to deploy
to all of its employees worldwide. Everything would be
hosted by Microsoft at Microsoft data centers around the
globe.
Benefits

We have chosen Microsoft

Online Services because
it promises to deliver a
simple intuitive Information
Workplace that should
not only bring value to
the company through
simplification, but provide
an improved user experience
and ultimately create a more
productive GSK.
Bill Louv, Chief Information Officer, GlaxoSmithKline

Reduce Operational Costs

Drive Innovation
Improve Collaboration
Simplify User Experience

Migrating IBM Lotus Notes and Domino to the Cloud: Selecting Microsoft versus Google

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Godiva Chocolates
Godiva Chocolatier is a premier purveyor of hand-crafted
chocolates, available from its 400-plus global boutique
stores, other retailers, and over the Internet. Godiva is
based in New York City and has 1,400 employees.
Business Situation
Godiva needed to upgrade its aging IBM Lotus Notes email
system, but felt that the move would be expensive and
consume valuable IT staff time. Also, users were dissatisfied
with the Notes interface. Godiva also looked at LotusLive, a
cloud-based email service from IBM, and Google Gmail.
Solution
Godiva licensed the Microsoft Business Productivity Online
Standard Suite, part of Microsoft Online Services, which
provides Microsoft communications and collaboration programs for a monthly per-user fee. They worked with Binary
Tree, a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, to migrate their
email into the cloud, using Microsoft Online Services.
By delivering email over the Internet, Godiva eliminated
U.S.$250,000 in annual Notes maintenance and hosting
fees, achieved cost-effective email scalability, and freed its
IT staff to focus on supporting business growth.

Ive been able to provide

equal or better email service
at a much lower cost, which
is a big win for Godiva.
Were looking at a $250,000
annual savings from
eliminating Notes.
Steve Whitelam, Director of Information Technology,
Global Shared Services, Godiva Chocolatier

Benefits

U.S.$250,000 annual savings

Faster response to business needs
Easier scalability
Cost-effective availability

Microsoft Migration Partners

Microsoft works closely with scores of partners that have experience in migrating Lotus Notes installations to Microsoft
products. Three key Microsoft partners have migrated more than 35 million users from Lotus Notes to Microsoft products
in the past decade:

Binary Tree: www.binarytree.com

CASAHL Technology: www.casahl.com
Quest Software: www.quest.com/

Make an informed decision! Visit www.whymicrosoft.com

Migrating IBM Lotus Notes and Domino to the Cloud: Selecting Microsoft versus Google

2010 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.

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