However, the company hit a few snags while moving data from its existing systems to the equivalents in Office 365. The migration went smoother than the CIO expected, the result of vigorous preparation by ABB and Microsoft, according to Tidd. "I was very keen to move as many people out of more commoditized services into areas where they could support the business, and this seemed a good opportunity to do that," Tidd says.
(Microsoft and ABB recently reached out to see CIO.com with this exclusive update on the project.) The majority of ABB employees have now used Office 365 for a little more than a year, but until now Microsoft and ABB didn't discuss the project at all after it was first announced in April 2013. "We had an existing relationship with Microsoft, and we just felt it was a better fit in terms of both functionality and our ability to work with on an enterprise level." ABB's (mostly) smooth transition from IBM Notes to Microsoft Office 365ĪBB completed the project about six months after its research project began, due in large part to an aggressive plan that moved as many as 5,000 employees to Office 365 per week, according to Tidd. "When we added everything together it was a very close decision," says Tidd. Microsoft received high marks in all areas ABB tested, but it was never a foregone conclusion that Microsoft would get ABB's business. "When we looked at what was available and how the services were developing, the feeling was that we didn't have to hold onto this in-house." Under Tidd's direction, ABB decided it wanted not only a simpler platform, but also one that kept employees engaged and connected.ĪBB researched a variety of on-premises and cloud-based solutions before performing its formal evaluation, according to Tidd. After extensive evaluation, Microsoft gets the nodĪBB, one of the world's largest engineering companies, was anxious to move its staff beyond what was then a simple mobile experience for email.
Prior to the move, the company had been using a locally managed version of IBM Notes, along with a collection of voice, video and screen-sharing tools from Cisco and other vendors. Tidd began this journey more than two years ago, when the latest productivity, communication and collaboration tools made it abundantly clear that ABB needed a change, he says.