I work in a fairly big company that made this decision about 2 years ago.
Some of you have commented, along the line of "What a great opportunity for you, think about all the stuff & technologies you will learn!"
Forget it! The cost of migrating both the application portfolio and the developers are too large, the only way to get rid of it is to starve it to death.
Stop all new development! Ensure that everybody in the organization knows that the platform has received the death-mark so they do not invest in new functionality for the exiting applications.
Lifespan of most Notes/ Domino applications are short, in a few years you will have a more manageable portfolio. Meanwhile do not invest in competence for the Domino developers, but keep them occupied with maintenance and integrating existing applications to new infrastructure (mail platform for instance). This will ensure that they leave the company steadily. With some good managerial work you can synchronize the decay of both the application portfolio and the developer group. After a couple of years this leaves you with a skeleton crew maintaining the rest portfolio, at a gradually lower service & competence level.
Hire new developers for the new platforms. Fire & hire is cheaper, especially if you can get the developers to quit at they own accord.
I work in a fairly big company that made this decision about 2 years ago.
Some of you have commented, along the line of "What a great opportunity for you, think about all the stuff & technologies you will learn!"
Forget it! The cost of migrating both the application portfolio and the developers are too large, the only way to get rid of it is to starve it to death.
Stop all new development! Ensure that everybody in the organization knows that the platform has received the death-mark so they do not invest in new functionality for the exiting applications.
Lifespan of most Notes/ Domino applications are short, in a few years you will have a more manageable portfolio. Meanwhile do not invest in competence for the Domino developers, but keep them occupied with maintenance and integrating existing applications to new infrastructure (mail platform for instance). This will ensure that they leave the company steadily. With some good managerial work you can synchronize the decay of both the application portfolio and the developer group. After a couple of years this leaves you with a skeleton crew maintaining the rest portfolio, at a gradually lower service & competence level.
Hire new developers for the new platforms. Fire & hire is cheaper, especially if you can get the developers to quit at they own accord.