Lotus Notes. It was never a great product, but many companies bought the IBM lines and deployed it anyway. I remember using Lotus Notes (and cc:Mail, btw) way back in the 1990's in a large accounting firm where I worked. And, not only using it, but also implementing and managing it. So, I know the pains from both the end-user and the administrator viewpoints. It was not a pleasant experience.

If you talk to those still using Lotus Notes today (yes, they are out there), the conversation will quickly turn to one of regret for not migrating away already.

Dell has released a couple tools to help organizations finally migrate seamlessly off of IBM Notes (as it's now called). Notes Migrator for Exchange allows organizations to move from Lotus Notes to Exchange 2013 or Office 365 en masse. It provides capabilities to transfer single or multiple mailboxes, ensuring that all data is migrated including data from email, personal address books, calendars, archives, and other things.  Coexistence Manager for Notes is a conduit that sites between Lotus Notes and Microsoft Exchange during a migration period, ensuring there's no data loss and that directories remain in sync.

Dell, along with Microsoft and InfraScience, recently helped Coats PLC, the world's leading industrial thread and consumer textile crafts business, make a seamless jump from Lotus Notes to Office 365. The migration of 7,500 users to just five months to complete.

You don't normally think of Dell as a strong consulting and solutions provider, but that is slowly starting to change. Dell is successfully using past acquisitions to transform the company into a full-service provider.

Here's the full press release:

Coats Chooses Dell Software Migration Solutions for Worldwide Move to Office 365

• Dell, InfraScience, and Microsoft partnered to migrate 7,500 users in 70 countries from IBM Notes to Office 365
• Scalability and flexibility enabled seamless migration of multiple mailboxes simultaneously to complete the project in just five months
• Automated solutions delivered significant ROI by saving valuable IT time and effort

Dell Software today announced that Coats plc, the world's leading industrial thread and consumer textile crafts business, utilized the company’s Notes migration solutions to complete a fast, seamless global migration of 7,500 users from IBM Notes to Office 365, in only five months and without disruption to the company’s day-to-day business activities. Working with Microsoft and InfraScience, a member of Dell’s PartnerDirect program, Coats used Dell’s Notes Migrator for Exchange and Coexistence Manager for Notes to provide a seamless, cost-effective migration experience.

Coats, which operates in more than 70 countries, offers products and services for the apparel and footwear industries; develops technical products in new areas such as aramids, tracer threads and fiber optics; and is the No. 1 global player in the textiles crafts market. Coats used IBM Notes as its messaging environment for 15 years, but, as the company globalized, the Notes environment no longer met all its communication needs. The expense of maintaining legacy technology combined with the compatibility challenges associated with IBM Notes integration with emerging platforms ─ notably mobile technologies ─ was a key driver in Coats seeking to upgrade its messaging platform. The objective for Coats was to enable easy and cost-effective communication and collaboration across both desktop and mobile devices, regardless of geographical location.

After choosing the secure collaboration capabilities of Office 365, Coats selected  Dell partner InfraScience to manage the complex migration of 7,500 users across 70 countries ─ with mailboxes of up to 30 gigabytes in size ─ on a tight deadline of five months. Rather than migrating users in one country at a time, Dell’s Notes Migration solution set allowed Coats to migrate users from multiple countries – some with low bandwidth – simultaneously and without disruption to the business while vastly cutting migration costs by automating much of the process.  

Migration from IBM Notes to Office 365 on Schedule, With Little Impact on Users

Dell’s Notes Migrator for Exchange’s ability to scale for Coats’ project size and complexity while transferring email, personal address books, calendars, and archives ensured a fast, accurate migration that completed on time, and minimized the risk of data loss. The solution’s ability to migrate multiple mailboxes simultaneously, using flexible groups of users from different geographical locations was a key component to keeping the migration on schedule.

While the migration was in progress, Dell’s Coexistence Manager for Notes ensured users could continue to collaborate ─ send and receive emails, use meeting rooms, access shared resources, schedule recurring meetings ─ regardless of their migration status.

Even with some mailboxes of up to 30 gigabytes in size, Coats’ 7,500 users were migrated on schedule without disruption. The solutions reduced the cost of the project significantly by automating migration processes and delivering a solid return on investment.  

ZeroIMPACT Migrations Mitigate Risks and Eliminate Impact on End Users

Notes Migrator for Exchange and Coexistence Manager for Notes are part of Dell Software’s portfolio of ZeroIMPACT migration and consolidation solutions that efficiently move and restructure user accounts, data and systems without impacting users or business productivity. End users remain productive, with full access to mailboxes, calendars and public folders throughout the migration. This seamless coexistence eliminates the need for migration tasks after business hours, reducing administrator workload. To learn more about Dell’s ZeroIMPACT migration solutions, visit Dell booth #101 at MEC 2014, March 31 – April 2, in Austin, Texas.  

Quotes:

Steve Dickson, senior vice president and general manager, Windows Migration and Management, Dell Software

“The key to executing a successful migration ─ whether it’s to a new platform, the cloud, or as part of a merger or acquisition ─ is to assemble the right team. With the team of Microsoft, InfraScience and Dell Software, Coats was able to utilize our scalable, flexible migration solutions for a fast, seamless migration that maintained business continuity with very little impact on users. This teamwork is a perfect example of the way we use our expertise and customer-centric approach to work with our partners to quickly address customers’ unique business challenges.”  

Richard Cammish, CIO, Coats plc

“When you’re a global company operating in over 150 locations worldwide, moving to a new global technology platform is a complex task. We required solutions that would help meet our very tight project timescales and avoid any interruption to our business operations. The geographic distribution of our employees, compounded by low Internet bandwidth in some of the countries in which we operate added to the size of the challenge we faced. We are very pleased that working with Dell, InfraScience and Microsoft in a highly collaborative spirit, we were able to migrate users from multiple countries at the same time, meeting our objective of on-time project completion without disruption.”  

Jeff Meyer, CEO, InfraScience

“Dell Software’s Notes migration tools meant we could assure Coats would be able to hit their deadline with no problem ─ and we did.”  

Availability:

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Delivering Complete and Connected Software Solutions

Dell Software empowers companies of all sizes to experience Dell’s “Power to Do More” by delivering scalable yet simple-to-use solutions that can increase productivity, responsiveness and efficiency. Dell Software is uniquely positioned to address today’s most pressing business and IT challenges with holistic, connected software offerings across five core solution areas, encompassing data center and cloud management, information management, mobile workforce management, security and data protection. This software, when combined with Dell hardware and services, helps customers simplify IT, mitigate risk and accelerate business results.  

About Dell

Dell Inc. listens to customers and delivers innovative technology and services that give them the power to do more. For more information, visit http://www.dell.com/.    

About InfraScience

As a Dell Premier partner, InfraScience delivers proven infrastructure expertise gained through experience.  Our consultants design and implement a wide range of complex Microsoft and Dell Software infrastructure solutions from mid-size companies to large, multinational enterprises.  InfraScience affirms that strategic decision making aligned with a comprehensive set of goals can maximize returns on infrastructure investments. Our methodologies and framework guarantee high value results.  InfraScience helps organizations make the right decisions for their infrastructures and their budget.  For more information, visit http://www.infrascience.com/.