Whirlpool Ditches IBM Collaboration Software, Moves To Google Apps 101
cagraham writes "Appliance maker Whirlpool has decided to stop using IBM's "Notes" collaboration software, and instead move to Google Apps for Business. The Wall Street Journal reports that the decision was based on both worker's familiarity with Google Apps, and lessening the IT workload. Because most workers have used (or use) apps like Google Calendar and Google Docs, Whirlpool's IT staff won't have to devote as much time to initial software training. This move lines up with recent enterprise reports, which largely forecast an increasing move to cloud based software. Whirlpool's contract with Google will cover all of their 30,000 employees."
Re:My company changed software too (Score:5, Informative)
I want to know how they did it without losing any functionality (or sanity!)
While our previous setup wasn't from IBM/Lotus, we switched to Google Apps a couple years ago. In our case the thinking wasn't "do we have 100% of our old functionality?", it was "is it good enough, especially given the cost savings (Apps is free since we're an educational institution)?" - and the answer to that question was yes.
It's sort of like all those places that switched to Hyper-V a few years ago. It was obvious Hyper-V was lacking in features when compared to VMware ESX; but in a lot of circumstances it ended up not costing anything up front, so the "good enough" argument combined with the cost savings won the day.
I'm not saying it was necessarily the right decision - it wasn't my decision to make, only to implement. But it sure seems like "good enough if it's cheap enough" rules the day much of the time, anymore.
Notes == spawn of Satan (Score:2, Informative)
I was exposed to Lotus, then IBM Notes, in the mid and late 90's, and it was atrocious.
The users at Whirlpool will think of Google Apps as... the savior. And not because Google Apps is so good in absolute terms.