Lotus Notes and IBM Domino enjoyed a long career as the choice solutions for organizations when it came to project management, budgeting, approval workflows, and more. But today, businesses need more out of technology—they need highly responsive messaging and collaboration in addition to the advantages of the cloud.
That’s where cloud-based solutions like Microsoft 365 have emerged as the answer to what to do about all the data on your Domino solution. It can feel overwhelming to consider migrating away from Lotus Notes, but it’s necessary if you want to digitally transform, stay competitive, and offer employees and customers a better experience.
Below are the major benefits you’ll experience when you make the move from IBM Domino to a cloud-based solution like Microsoft 365.
Time and Labor Savings
One of the greatest time savings you’ll offer your IT team is in the elimination of manual software updates. Moving to the cloud means your solution will update automatically to the latest version when it becomes available—freeing your staff from spending hours managing these upgrades and disrupting business operations to do so.
Data Security
When your cloud-based solution is always on the latest version, you never have to worry about software going unsupported or needlessly exposed to security threats. Solutions like Microsoft 365 are constantly being upgraded with sophisticated security capabilities to combat today’s ever-evolving threats, so your IT team does not manually need to ensure the system is patched.
And, contrary to popular belief, the cloud is not less secure than older, legacy, on-premise systems. Cloud providers like Microsoft have invested enormous amounts of time and money into ensuring their solutions are built with the latest security features. Your data also remains backed up in the cloud so you retain data access and integrity in case of an outage. IT teams are able to set permissions so only the right users have access to the right information in your cloud solution.
Reduced Costs
In a cloud environment, you forgo the costs associated with implementing, managing, and maintaining on-premise hardware. With no local email servers or drives for IT to manage, you can forget about paying to house that equipment and ensure its security.
You’ll also enjoy a “pay as you go” model in the cloud, so you only pay for the seats you use on a monthly basis instead of having to fork over large payments for upfront capital expenditures.
Flexibility and Scalability
Solutions like Microsoft 365 offer the ability to access it from any device at any location. Your employees will be able to work from anywhere—a must in today’s hybrid work environment. You’ll give your workforce the flexibility it wants while ensuring you can economically scale up or down depending on your needs. Cloud usage and subscriptions can be easily increased or decreased depending on how many teams or employees you bring on.
Greater Feature Functionality
Microsoft 365 simply just offers a more powerful platform for modern business over IBM Domino. Aside from the fact that Domino is no longer being developed or supported, experts to help you with Lotus Notes or Domino are difficult to come by these days. Domino was also designed before the business world had a pressing need for interoperability with data from multiple digital sources, so it is sub-par in terms of collaboration compared to cloud solutions.
Microsoft 365 offers superior communication and collaboration capabilities, document management, project management, and security. As a cloud-based solution, it delivers impressive features within its applications that empower your users to speed up workflows, achieve better productivity, and improve the customer experience. Migrating away from IBM Domino is now a no-brainer.
Need Help with Your IBM Domino Migration?
There’s a lot to know about where to start if you’re planning on moving from Domino to a cloud-based solution like Microsoft 365. Rather than try to master the process yourself, consider using an expert partner like Point Alliance.
Point Alliance is here to help you move out of this system with careful consideration for all your moving parts and business goals, and we’ve developed a unique, proven methodology for migrating businesses to the cloud with the least amount of business disruption possible. With a rapid delivery model, we help you start seeing return on investment (ROI) from your move to the cloud as soon as possible. Contact us today if you have any questions about how to make a migration to Microsoft 365 or your first steps to leave behind IBM Domino.
