Getronics has successfully migrated over 11,000 e-mail users at Abbey National from Microsoft Mail to Microsoft Exchange as part of the UK bank's move towards a common operating environment (COE).
Much of the preparatory work was conducted out of hours and the migration conducted over a single weekend.
"For both Getronics and Microsoft this is a really a showcase of how large software upgrades should be performed at financial institutions," boasts Getronics senior consultant David Farnworth. "And a huge contribution to the success of this project came from Abbey National itself - including developing one of the best-ever internal user-guides to Exchange that I've seen."
The project, carried out at Abbey National's head offices in Milton Keynes, highlights the importance of electronic communication via e-mail to large companies, says Farnworth.
Steve Lane, Abbey National's group technology and infrastructure services director agrees: "Losing our messaging or appointments system completely, even briefly, would have had a significant impact on our business. E-mail is the glue that holds the infrastructure of any modern financial institution together."
He says the switch to Exchange was very smooth. "Most teams were working by lunch time on the morning of conversion and there was no data loss."