Spark completes email migration from Yahoo to SMX

Spark says it has completed the migration of its Xtra email service from Yahoo to New Zealand-owned email platform provider SMX, announced in September 2016 and now has more than 800,000 Xtra email accounts running on the new email platform.

Jason Paris, CEO of Spark Home Mobile and Business, said migration of the 800,000 accounts and more than 1.4 billion messages had been one of the biggest IT migration projects in New Zealand’s history.

He said the migration had been completed safely and securely in the planned timeline, but a small percentage of customers had experienced issues both on the Yahoo side and due to migration activities. “The large majority of customers had a seamless experience as we migrated their email to the new platform. Nine out of 10 customers had a smooth transition.”

Paris hinted that Yahoo had been less helpful than it could have been, saying the migration did have some challenges, particularly when dealing with Yahoo. “It’s great to complete the transition away from an email provider who’s been dealing with big issues on a global basis, and has kept us very much at arm’s length, to an email partner here in New Zealand that operates with real transparency.”

He said the migration had been undertaken in three phases. “From September to November, the focus was on gaining permission from customers to bring their data across. In December and January, the project team set everything up ready for the migration. Then from February to April, SMX ran the actual migration process.’

Spark said only 12 percent of Xtra customers had contacted it during the migration with a query about email – and nearly all these customers had their question or issue resolved during or following the first contact with only 0.1 percent having an issue that took multiple attempts to fix.

Spark said The SMX service was built on SMX’s SMX3 cloud integration platform and included its MX email security suite, alongside a host of email security and third party email messaging applications.

It said the Open-Xchange app suite – from the German company of the same name -- was a key component of the solution. According to Spark this is “a globally recognised product used by major companies globally including Virgin Media, Comcast and Orange.”