Explore the Difference Between Lotus Notes and Office 365 in Detail

Summary: If you are finding the difference between Lotus Notes and Office 365, then your search ends here. In this article, you will find a complete explanation of the key differences between Lotus Notes and Office 365. An efficient solution is also discussed to shift your data from Lotus Notes to Office 365 without any hassle.

Lotus Notes and Office 365 both are known as email clients. Basically, Lotus Notes was started by IBM but later on, it was sold to HCL in 2019. HCL Notes uses the Domino server to handle the emails. Office 365 and Lotus Notes both are able to meet the enterprise’s needs. But the question arises which one is more suitable for you? So, let’s discuss the difference between HCL Notes and Office 365

Table Of Content

• Lotus Notes Vs Office 365 – Detailed Explanation
  • Deployment of the Email Client
  • User-Interface for Lotus Notes vs Office 365
  • Lotus Notes and Office 365 Comparison Based on the Security of the Mailbox
  • Lotus Notes and Office 365 Comparison on the Basis of the Storage
  • Lotus Notes vs Office 365 – Application Availability and Content Management
• How to Switch From Lotus Notes to Office 365?
• Conclusion

Lotus Notes Vs Office 365 – Detailed Explanation

Here is a complete explanation of the difference between both email clients to give you a brief idea.

1. Deployment of the Email Client

Office 365 uses the cloud to manage the emails. There are the proper subscription plans that need to be bought by the Organization as per their need. The plans can be extended or Renewed if required. Because of the cloud, it is easier to manage.

Lotus Notes was on the cloud in the earlier days. But now HCL Notes is based on the on-premise server. To use Lotus Notes, you need to manage the server and allocate the administrator for smooth functioning.

2. User-Interface for Lotus Notes vs Office 365

The user interface plays an important role in the difference between Lotus Notes and Office 365. Office 365 offers, Outlook as the email client. It provides an engaging interface due to which it is easier to understand for the users. Any new user can be familiar with Office 365 very soon.

The user interface of HCL Notes is under development. It is improving regularly to make the users understand quickly. The more features of Office 365 such as Word, Excel, and so on are easily integrated. But Lotus Notes has not provided this facility. Because of the cloud, Office 365 can be operated from any location with the help of the Internet.

3. Lotus Notes and Office 365 Comparison Based on the Security of the Mailbox

Discuss the HCL Notes vs Office 365 on the basis of the Security of the mailboxes. In Lotus Notes the No-SQL database is use to store the data. It is a highly secured database and is uses at an alarming rate. It is a flexible database that can store huge data. All the data of Lotus Notes is storing in the format of .nsf files. The administrators can manage the database with the help of its documentation and apply the latest encryption algorithms. There is a requirement of a highly skilled administrator to manage the HCL Notes data. It also requires third-party software such as antivirus, etc.

Office 365 is more secure because of its regular updates. Office 365 uses the 128-bit RPC encryption technique. There are regular updates in Office 365 to provide better security. It uses the OST file which is regularly sync with the server to reflect the changes to the data.

4. Lotus Notes and Office 365 Comparison on the Basis of the Storage

Let’s explore the storage to find the difference between Lotus Notes and Office 365. As Lotus Notes uses the on-premise server, the storage should be maintain by the administrator by adding more hard drives. Expanding or Shrinking the storage in Lotus Notes should be performed carefully. But in Office 365, for more storage you can upgrade the plans. You can also downgrade the plans as per the requirement.

5. Lotus Notes vs Office 365 – Application Availability and Content Management

Lotus Notes does not provide any additional applications for another purpose. HCL Notes also does not have any application to manage the content. Office 365 has a collection of multiple applications which are using for calls, online meetings, storing documents, etc. Office 365 uses SharePoint to manage the content and also provides a collaboration feature.

After analyzing the Lotus Notes vs Office 365, you are wondering if is there any way that can help you to migrate NSF files to Office 365. Let’s find a way to switch to Microsoft Office 365 from HCL Notes.

Also Read: How to Restore Deleted Groups from the Office 365?

How to Switch From HCL Notes to Microsoft Office 365?

To use Microsoft Office 365 but with the old mailboxes of Lotus Notes, you can move the data to Office 365 by using different methods. There are three methods that can migrate the data. Let’s explore each one in detail.

Method 1. MONTI Technique to Use Microsoft Office 365 with HCL Notes Mailboxes

Microsoft Online Notes Inspector (MONTI) was developed for the customers to collect particular data to make the migration easier. It collects multiple information such as mailbox size, calendar item size, group item size, and contact item size. It requires the Reader access to the Domino servers. The user should be able to create replicas on the Domino servers and issue remote console commands to the Domino servers.

Limitations

1. To use the MONTI method, you should be good at the technicalities of the server and Lotus Notes as well.
2. It is a time-consuming process to migrate the large data.
3. You need to follow the 86-page manual guide without skipping any step.
4. There might be chances of data loss or data corruption in between the processes.

Method 2. Use IMAP Connector to Shift from HCL Notes to Microsoft Office 365

The second method is the IMAP connector to switch from HCL Notes to Office 365. You should take the backup of the Lotus Notes database which are NSF files. After that, you need to create the mailboxes in Office 365 manually for each user. Then Enable the IMAP connection to synchronize the HCL Notes emails to Microsoft Office 365.

Limitations

1. There is a firewall and proxy in the server of Lotus Notes which block the Internet.
2. It does not support the calendar migration.
3. It is only applicable to the NSF files which are in 1 GB of size only.
4. The time-consuming process to create the users in Office 365 manually and there can be human error that ruins the whole process.

Method 3. Efficient Solution to Switch from HCL Notes to Office 365

Above are the manual solutions that are not a good approach to shifting data from Lotus Notes to Office 365. This is the professional solution recommends by the experts to perform migration. It uses the Lotus Notes to Office 365 Migration tool to perform the migration easily without any errors. This tool is able to migrate the HCL Notes to Office 365 with all items. The In-Place Archive mailbox has also migrated. It needs some easy steps only.

Step-by-Step Approach to Use the Tool

1. Download and Run the tool.

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1. Select the Notes as Source and Office 365 as the destination.
2. Select the required items from the workload and apply the Date Filter.
3. Enter the Admin Details and Destination details, validate them, and Next.
4. Fetch the users and Start Migration.

Conclusion

Now you are aware of the difference between Lotus Notes and Office 365. All the key differences are discussed in detail. The different methods are also elaborated to switch to  Microsoft Office 365 from HCL Notes. We have discussed the two manual methods but they are not recommended to use because of their limitations. Due to this, we have explained one efficient solution which is suggested to use for the successful migration.

Also Read: How to Perform Lotus Notes to Exchange Migration?