Despite industry speculation that Edgars, a member of the Edcon Group, would be changing it`s messaging software from Microsoft to Lotus, the retail giant has opted to remain with Lotus and has taken out it`s Microsoft email applications and hardware.
According to Mark Wilson, manager for Lotus Consulting, the removal of Exchange and upgrading of cc: Mail began in December last year and was completed in a few months ago.
Fifteen cc:Mail servers and one Exchange Server were replaced by two Domino servers. The messaging aspect of the project consisted of migrating mail for users at each of the thousand stores to one Domino server and then moving Edgardale campus users across to the second Domino server.
A Domino Fax Server was also implemented to replace an existing non-Y2K fax solution and, in its first two months of operation it handled over 28 000 faxes.
"We uninstalled Exchange on December 24, just in time to give Microsoft a Christmas present," says Wilson.
Lex Morgan, IT Executive at Edcon, says that the group has long been standardised on Lotus software - Notes for mail and SmartSuite for its office productivity suite. Microsoft was considered but the retailer decided there was "No business benefit to be gained from changing standards at this time and opted to remain with Lotus."
Share