Business Situation

While Fremap was already working with both Accenture and Avanade on an engagement to move its applications to the .NET platform, the company looked for additional ways to improve on its current infrastructure and increase the capacity for growth of its own systems.

Based on its knowledge of Fremap’s current business goals, the Avanade Spain team approached the customer regarding the possibility of a migration of its Lotus Notes/Domino solution to the Microsoft platform. Our team suggested this migration based on productivity issues we saw that were related to Lotus Notes. These limitations were directly affecting its achievement of its business goals.

Solution

To illustrate how Fremap might meet its goals and further improve its infrastructure, Avanade delivered a Notes-to-Microsoft assessment, including a validation and design analysis of Fremap’s current messaging architecture. The assessment enabled Fremap to compare the benefits and drawbacks of the two platforms and provided Fremap expert technical knowledge of the limits of its existing systems, including possible routes for extending capability.

Results

Avanade’s assessment demonstrated that Fremap could save between 54,000 to 82,000 hours on an annual basis by migrating to the Microsoft platform. In addition, a migration would also yield the following benefits:

• Expanded functionality and the ability to integrate with other systems, and incorporate new business processes.
• Ease of use through simplified navigation schemes.
• Single log-on (unique log-on) for the user to access any corporate applications.
• Reduction in the amount of time and effort required to maintain solutions; for example, platform unity and an Active Directory deployment would eliminate conflicts stemming from duplicate information. Also, there would be a reduction in the frequency of calls to user support centers.
• The opportunity to offer remote access to personal information, such as messages, scheduling, or tasks.

 The benefits were overwhelming and the customer chose to move ahead. The Fremap Lotus Notes migration recently began with Avanade’s creation of a collaborative platform based on SharePoint Portal Server 2003. The portal will provide the foundation for the subsequent migration of Fremap’s Lotus Notes environment to the Microsoft platform.