I came across an article a few weeks ago which I've seen promoted a number of times on Twitter. Perhaps my math is off, or maybe I'm still stuck in vacation mode, but this just sounds like it doesn't make sense:
"The university's maintenance agreements were costing them $250,000
annually, and they wanted to conclude the transition before they needed
to renew the next agreement. Still, their projected total is $2.5
million over the next five years by making the move to Office 365."
I'm not understanding. Instead of paying $250,000 per year in maintenance costs, they've moved to another solution and paying twice as much per year? How are they "saving close to half a million dollars as a result, with other anticipated savings down the road."
No mention of increased productivity, IT staff reduction, or anything else...just, ahem...cost savings.
Also, "they weren't going to attempt during the project to set appropriate
expectations, such as migrate Lotus applications, upgrade desktops to a
new operating system, or transfer archived or personal email data."
So, from this I gather that they are still probably running Lotus Notes for their Lotus applications and mail archives. They're just not paying their support costs. Fair enough.
I work for a small business. I couldn't cost justify this type of migration based on this Office 365 customer story. I'd be taken out and flogged! It sounds like a nightmare with zero upside.
But hey, they're in the cloud. If my decision resulted in a similar result, I'm sure I'd be asked "what the heck was the point?"
Humans are emotional animals, so logic doesn't always rule the day. Most people purchase software out of an emotional response first and logic is always secondary. Anything can make sense financially if you play with the numbers.
ReplyDeleteIt was once cool to own VHS player, even though Betamax was better. It is now ultra cool to own an iPhone even though many smartphones are cheaper and do roughly the same thing.
There's lots of other examples.
I don't think IBM ever really understands the emotional response to hardware and software. Microsoft once did... and Steve Jobs definitely did.
I would say in the consumer market, emotions play a greater role. In business, self preservation instincts guide me to accurately cost justify a major migration to another product.
ReplyDeleteWell, even in business the main emotion for Lotus Notes is, "I hate Lotus Notes". That is why companies/organizations migrate. It really doesn't get any simpler. IBM has failed miserably to change the emotional response to Lotus Notes in the last 10 years. In fact, by not making any major changes to the Notes client since release 5 they have just made it worse. It appears now that they have just given up and are moving on to sell IBM Connections instead.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with your logic, but emotion is stronger and usually wins out.
I'm a Lotus veteran with over 18 years experience, so I wish it weren't the case. My emotion. Disappointment.