Microsoft Corp strengthened itself in the area of groupware by acquiring closely-held Mesa Group Inc, a company that offers tools and services for migrating Lotus Notes applications to Microsoft Exchange Server. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Boston-based Mesa also provides tools to migrate Lotus cc:Mail archives to Exchange. Microsoft claims the company’s coexistence technology allows for uninterrupted access to data throughout the migration process. Redmond says customers deploying Exchange Server 5.5 have shown strong interest in unifying messaging and collaboration on a single infrastructure – and the acquisition of Mesa’s JumpStart line of products gives it the ability to provide a smoother transition to the Microsoft platform. Redmond plans to integrate the JumpStart technology into its Exchange product line. It says JumpStart complements the Notes Connector, currently available in Exchange 5.5, and creates a complete set of migration and coexistence tools. Mesa, founded in 1989, boasts it’s helped over 100 customers migrate their Notes applications to Exchange, with 1,000 fully converted Notes applications to date.
