Microsoft offers superior web based interface per newspaper
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A long time user of Lotus Notes, the University of Nebraska, made big waves last year when they announced the move away from Lotus Notes for their entire faculty and staff at campuses (students moved long ago). The article from Daily Nebraskan states they spend $1M USD annually to use the software and will reduce costs by half when they switch to the web based Microsoft Office 365.
NOTE: The University of Nebraska Medical Center is not migrating to the new system because of concerns about security.
Interestingly they said their Lotus Notes environment only had 1G of storage per person and the new Microsoft system offers 25. This is alrgely due to their limitations the university set and had nothing to do with the software as we know.
"Microsoft offered a superior web-based interface and enhanced capabilities, and that their business models put more emphasis on the needs of higher education than Lotus Notes," according to the University of Nebraska Board of Regents website."
Mark Askren, chief information officer for UNL Information Services, spoke about the transition.
As I read the article I got the feeling this move was done way ahead of web based Lotus offerings and integration with Connections, deployment of DAOS opportunities and more.
"This is part of our move to provide better IT services for less costs," he said. "The old system was largely no longer used at major research universities. Microsoft and Google had better web interfaces."
Is the demise of Lotus at major research universities due to functionality in Notes? No. Marketing and push into academics? Yes.
I worked with the Lotus academic sales team for numerous years until they were disbanded and strewn across other divisions or left IBM entirely.
The article does a fine job of bashing what was a complicated and under managed environment for some time.
"My personal experience (with the program) has been very positive,"says Alan Moeller, the assistant vice chancellor for the Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources' Finance and Personnel Office. He went on to say he prefers Microsoft 365 for its compatibility with other programs, such as Apple products.
When asked about the old system, he said that it was slow and the system was often down.
I wish this had been able to be salvaged long ago. I had not seen any of the staff at Lotusphere in years. They also fail to mention anything about mobile device moves and management in the articles.
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On Thursday, February 16th, 2012 by Chris Miller
