Let me start off by saying that I really don’t have a lot of experience with Lotus Notes. I was able to suffer through using the client for about a week before I finally begged the Notes admin to forward my mail to my Gmail account. As an email client, I personally found the Notes client application to be pretty much unusable.
But, my experience working with a company that uses Notes is that everything seems to be “in Notes.” For example, ask the Human Resource department for information regarding hiring policies, and the answer comes back, “That’s in Notes.” If you need a copy of some recent financial data, guess where it is? That’s right, it’s “in Notes.”
With the recent addition of Google Sites to the Google Apps suite, I think Lotus Notes can be effectively phased out of many organizations.
When I first wrote that, it seemed pretty obvious. The more I think about it, the more I realize that it’s really a bold move. It’s a major paradigm shift for most organizations. There is still a belief among many technology departments that data must be local to be useful. This is likely born from a fear that moving data somewhere else, in other words, outsourcing applications like messaging and document sharing, will mean a decreased importance for the group supporting the in-house versions of those applications. (Trust me — I make a living off this kind of thinking, really.)
Realistically, with Google offering a fully functional Intranet application, what’s stopping you? If you have some thoughts on the subject, don’t be shy. Leave a comment below and let’s see what develops.
Update:
It seems that after 28 months, this post has started to garner a bit of attention again thanks to JT at the Montreal Notes Shop. The conversation is definitely welcome!
The company in question here migrated from Lotus 6.5 to Google Apps in October 2009. The company was small enough at the time (only 65 users compared to the thousand or so that worked there pre-2004), that the migration was fairly simplistic. The applications built on Domino have either been migrated to Google or other internal applications depending on the application’s needs.
As JT, pointed out Chris does an excellent job summarizing the various considerations that must be made when a move from Lotus to Google Apps is suggested. As he rightly points out, the messaging / calendaring aspects of Lotus Notes were by far the easiest part of the migration. Users were also glad to move away from the very old version of the Lotus Notes client they were using.
Thanks again and keep the conversation rolling!
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nice blog post. i learnes something new today. my week isnt complete with dropping by here.
I think your opinions about Lotus Notes and Google Apps is very superficial, Google Apps is a good start for Software As Services and is just beginning but is not sufficiently robust to withstand applications or functionality developed in Lotus Notes. Another point that goes to security, Do you really trust that your information is secure and no unauthorized person will have access?
What are the disadvantages to using Google Apps over Lotus Notes. I have been using Google Apps to power my email, calendar and contacts. I haven’t had any problems with the service and have switched a few of my clients to Google Apps with continued success. My clients do not have the same problems with spam, mail server performance, and message retrieval. Without being able to compare I cannot say that it can replace Google Apps in all situations. Google Apps I believe is an effective small – midsize business solution for contact management. Not having to use a server reduces the administrative overhead of email.
And what happen about the problem that Google had last Wednesday?
Well downtime is expected for any service. The question becomes whether the amount of downtime is acceptable. In a corporate environment downtime is expected whether planned or unplanned. If you are trying to say that one is more reliable than the other. The only difference is that someone else is responsible for making sure that the servers are up and running.
You ask the question in your headline “Can Google Apps replace Lotus Notes?”. You then go on to illustrate how little you know about Lotus Notes.
So essentially you’re asking if something you know little or nothing about can be replaced by something you do.
Chris, you’re absolutely right. I asked a question, and gave my thoughts on an answer.
My question is “Can Google Apps replace Lotus Notes?”
There are, without question, times when it can and when it can’t. Obviously, some folks have made this transition and been happy with the results. For each success story there are some number of failures.
Perhaps, you could give us some examples of when Google Apps can’t replace Lotus Notes? That would be informative for everyone.
Hi Scott
I’m glad you engaged me on this. I think a common misconception is that Notes is a mail/messaging platform and that’s it.
While mail is what is generally recognised for, as you pointed out in your article, data is held “in Notes”, in much the same way as it’s “in Oracle” or “in SQL”.
So to answer (in a roundabout way) for mail and calendaring, tasks etc. Google apps can certainly replace whatever you’re using to accomplish that task, whether it’s Notes, Outlook or a combination of different clients.
For other applications it’s not so simple. Lotus Notes and Domino (Notes is the client and Domino is the Server and Development environment) allows for fully bespoke applications to be developed. So in most cases it’s not just a case of “here’s how to migrate a Notes HR app”.
Each application would need to be re-developed using Google Web Toolkit and then added to your application vault in Google apps.
The other concern that a lot of organisations may have is availablity, security and data ownership.
Availability:
There have been some recent instances of downtime for Google whereas I have heard of Domino servers running quite happily for up to 2 years until the OS decides it needs a reboot.
This can be mitigated somewhat by using Google Gears though.
Security:
I’m not really questioning Google’s security model just mainly that once data is offsite the pathways can be compromised.
Data Ownership:
This is a big one. Who owns, has access to and can control the data once it’s offsite?
Anyway I think I’ve covered enough points.
My answer to this is, it depends on what you use Lotus Notes for.
If you use it for mail/calendaring/productivity tools (Symphony) and you’re not worried about someone else owning your data then yes.
Otherwise, not completely
NOTE: I use Lotus Notes and Domino AND Google Apps on a daily basis.
That was an interesting reply. I really didn’t know that much about Notes. Now knowing what Notes actually does it would be challenging for companies that use all of Notes features to replace the application. If you are just using it for email then the answer is that Google would be the more cost effective solution. If you are using it to house corporate data that is another problem which would have to be addressed separately.
Well the debate is an interesting one but I’m glad their are those more knowledgeable professionals that can help all of us understand the debate a little better.
I agree with Chris. Your comparison falls apart with your first statement.
“I really don’t have a lot of experience with Lotus Notes.”
After that it’s all blah blah blah. Lotus Notes & Lotus Domino are not in the same zip code as GMAIL. They are two very different products.
I would also recommend you write an article called Honda vs. Ferrari, and then start the first line with. I have never driven a Ferrari, but someone with no experience with them or a racing background suggested they are hard to drive. I prefer my Honda Civic any day.
Yes I am beating a dead horse, but it pains me to think you know nothing about the product yet find all kinds of issues with it.
I understand where Google is going. They make a compelling case for their product but it’s not the same thing as Lotus’ offering. Same goes for Microsoft. Both Companies, Microsoft and Google, try to take on Lotus Notes as if the only thing it does is MAIL when in fact it’s so much more than mail.
Lastly if I seemed harsh I was not. Just a good old geek ribbing. Keep the post going. Next time you need a few experts just ask, we Lotus People will always help you out. Might even give you a Lotus Notes 8.5.1 client and a server to hook it to for testing. I can assure you if I could run my own Domino Server and Lotus Notes at home with no issues I would over anything else I have right now.
You started by saying “I really don’t have a lot of experience with Lotus Notes”. By the time you got to the end you pretty much proved your point. I’m willing to bet you probably haven’t developed too many Enterprise ready applications with google apps either. So are you planning on charging companies $200 per hour for all that wealth of experience you obviously don’t have?
I guess Google developers can better focus on Microsoft products. Easier to compete against
Google docs = MS Sharepoint?
Google Sites = MS Sharepoint?
Google mail = MS Exchange live?
Android = MS Windows?
Come on, defeat Redmond
What a waste of virtual space… This has to be a joke.