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In this competitive market, major vendors of messaging products are working aggressively to convince organizations to migrate to their email platforms. Even those not contemplating a complete change of vendors must periodically consider major version upgrades with their associated costs and disruptions. This report presents a cost model for email migrations broken into a number of categories. Average cost ranges and typical figures are presented along with a spreadsheet to estimate costs specific to a given environment. The cost model and spreadsheet are also applied to three hypothetical case studies as examples.

Table of Contents

Executive Summary
Main Cost Elements
    Labor Costs
    Hardware Costs
    Software License Costs
    Travel and Expenses
    User Disruptions
  Assumptions and Terminology
    Cost of Internal Labor
    All Figures in $U.S.
    Medium vs. Large Organizations
    Migrations Same as Major Upgrades
Labor Costs
  Research
    Tasks Involved
    Discussion
    Examples
  Evaluation
    Tasks Involved
    Discussion
    Examples
  Design
    Tasks Involved
    Discussion
    Examples
  Testing
    Tasks Involved
    Discussion
    Examples
  Implementation
    Tasks Involved
    Discussion
    Examples
  Training
    Tasks Involved
    Discussion
    Examples
  Application Conversion
Nonlabor Costs
  Hardware and Software Costs
    Examples
  Travel and Expense Costs
  User Disruption Costs
Using the Spreadsheet To Calculate Migration Costs
    Example: High-Cost Migration
    Example: Low-Cost Migration
    Example: Typical-Cost Migration
Conclusions and Observations
    Migrations Cost $125 to $500 per Mailbox
    In-Place Migrations Are Least Expensive
    Typical Corporate Migrations Cost $300 per Mailbox
    Some Migrations Cost Up to $700 per Mailbox
    Hardware and Software Represent the Greatest Cost
    Leased Servers Can Slash Hardware Costs
    Physical Implementation Is the Second Largest Cost
    Upfront Planning Pays Off Big Time
    Good Economies of Scale
    End-User Disruption Is Costly
    Third-Party Migration Tools Save $10 to $20 per Mailbox
    Include User Disruption Costs
    End-User Training Hard To Justify Financially
    Laptop Migrations Cost $25 to $2,000 per Mailbox!
    Client Deployment Is Expensive
    Major Upgrades Catalyst for Assessing Alternatives
    Notes Applications Major Barrier to Migration Elsewhere
    Notes Is Sticky During Mergers
    Active Directory Skews Cost of Exchange 2000 Migrations

Important Questions Answered by This Report:

• What are the key categories of cost in an email migration?
• How do organizational and technological factors impact on migration costs?
• What are low, typical, and high migration costs?
• Which migration strategies can reduce effort and duration to migrate?