Microsoft Application Transporter is a free entry-level migration tool from Microsoft that has accelerated interest in Notes to SharePoint migration.  Now part of the Microsoft Transporter Suite, this tool was built using licensed technology from the 1.0 version of Quest’s solution (then known as Proposion Portal Migrator) and delivered a subset of its capabilities for migration of standard Notes application templates.  Since then, Quest Software has continued to enhance and sell its Notes Migrator for SharePoint product with even more advanced features and capabilities. 

Microsoft and Quest work together in many areas, of course, and we have always articulated a consistent message about how the two products are positioned.  Microsoft Application Transporter allows organizations to get started with basic migrations of specific standard Notes templates and Notes Migrator for SharePoint is for anything more complicated than that. In spite of this, I still get a lot of questions on how the two tools compare.

Some of the advanced features in Notes Migrator for SharePoint that differentiate it from Microsoft Application Transporter include:

• Provision new SharePoint lists and document libraries from scratch.
• Support for enhanced HTML text fields, including embedded in-place images, tables, etc.
• Ability to convert DocLinks to "notes:" links or Domino links.
• Link Tracking Service ensures that your DocLinks continue to work before, during and after your migration process, regardless of the order of document migration.
• Convert complex Notes documents to InfoPath documents.
• Migrate from Lotus QuickPlaces to SharePoint.
• Migrate from Lotus Domino.Doc to SharePoint 2007.
• Utilize dynamic formulas to transform data during migration (examples: @DbLookup, @Implode).
• Utilize dynamic formulas or full text searches to select documents (example: MigrateFlag = "1").
• Dynamically derive folder names for files added to document libraries.
• Override generated file names for extracted images, HTML files, MIME files, etc.
• Render an entire Notes document (including form layout, rich text, embedded images and attachments) to a single MIME (MHT) file.
• Drag & Drop documents from Notes client to SharePoint targets for ad hoc, user-driven migration.
• Map calendar entries, including repeating entry logic.
• Integrate with Active Directory, Domino Directory or XML files for mapping Notes names to SharePoint user accounts.
• Support for Notes/Domino release 5 and higher.
• When generating HTML for SharePoint Lists, <IMG> tags point to corresponding List Item attachments so images appear in place.
• When generating HTML for SharePoint Lists, embedded attachments are converted to <A> tags so they appear in place.
• Map Notes security constructs (ACL, roles, groups, document-level reader/author fields) to the equivalent constructs in SharePoint.
• Integrate archival and migration functionality into any Notes/Domino application using LotusScript API.
• Ability to skip N records in a query (enables, for example, migrating 1000 records at a time).
• Map Notes rich text fields (including embedded images, OLE objects and attachments) to a single MIME (MHT) file.
• Options for mapping duplicate documents: write new item, replace existing item, create new version, skip item. (These options allow for running the same migration job repeatedly, perhaps on a scheduled basis.)
• Ability to automatically set the approval status of each document that is migrated to SharePoint based on Input data.
• Support for dynamically assigning content types. In addition, certain data fields can be conditionally migrated based on content type.
• Migrate embedded OLE objects, converting them to stand-alone document files (DOC, XLS, PPT, DOCX, PDF, etc.).
• Remote load capabilities allow real time migrations to occur without having to log on directly to your SharePoint server and without having to deploy Notes DLLs to the SharePoint server.
• Remotely design custom SharePoint data definitions without having to log on directly to the SharePoint server.
• Delete Notes documents as they are migrated (ideal for scheduled processing of a mail-in database).
• Per-user configuration supports operating Notes Migrator for SharePoint on shared machines.