J. Keil Wilson

This is a very tangible reason for your IT department to think twice about moving from Lotus Notes to Outlook/Exchange. I'm the total opposite of a zero-Inbox guy. Unless a message is obvious junk, I basically never delete anything. Full text search has always been more than adequate at helping me find whatever I'm looking for.

For the first 8.5 years at my current employer, I allowed my Notes mail file to bump up against my 150MB quota a couple of times. I always was able to easily clean out some messages and get back in line. By July of 2008, when the organization cut-over to Outlook/Exchange, my Notes mail file was only 78MB. I use the term "cut-over," because migration of email was too costly and difficult and was therefore not done. So after starting with an empty Outlook/Exchange mailbox in July of 2008, I've already hit 200MB...in less than 1 year! This is nuts. There have been so many WTF moments in this switch to Exchange, but few that so clearly illustrate the effects.

8.5 years of Lotus Notes mail = 78MB

10 months of Outlook/Exchange mail = 200MB