Microsoft Offers Migration Tools for Lotus Notes/Domino Users

Today, Microsoft announced a set of free software tools aimed at helping IBM Lotus Notes and Domino users move to Microsoft Office-based server platforms. That announcement came less than a week before Lotus's corporate parent, IBM, kicks off Lotusphere 2006 in Orlando, Florida.

"Today we are responding to the strong demand we're seeing from customers using Lotus Notes/Domino who are planning a transition to ... the Office system of programs, servers, and services," says Microsoft Corporate Vice President Kurt DelBene. "This announcement is a big step in our overall strategy toward helping these customers make the move so they can begin to take advantage of our platform's benefits."

The new set of migration tools includes:

- Microsoft Application Analyzer 2006 for Lotus Domino, which analyzes Notes/Domino environments and recommends how to migrate those applications to Microsoft's platforms. Microsoft intends to ship this product in the first quarter of 2006.

- Data Migrator 2006 for Lotus Domino, which helps organizations migrate data stored in Domino to Windows SharePoint Services (WSS). Data Migrator will ship in the second quarter of 2005.

- Three new Windows SharePoint Services Applications Templates will be added to the 30 application templates Microsoft first released in August 2005. The new templates include Discussion Database, Team Work Site, and Document Library; they're available today.

- Updated versions of existing messaging and coexistence tools, which are designed to help organizations migrate from Lotus Notes/Domino messaging to Microsoft Exchange. These tools include the Exchange Server 2003 Connector for Lotus Notes/Domino, Exchange Server 2003 Calendar Connector, and Exchange Server 2003 Migration Wizard for Lotus Notes/Domino.

For more information about these tools, please visit the Microsoft Web site.
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/interopmigration/collaboration/default.mspx