Dubbed "Migrate to the Penguin," the latest IBM incentive plan, to be announced later on Thursday, is an expansion of its Move2Lotus program, which is aimed at winning over third-party consultants and software resellers that work with Microsoft's Exchange.
IBM is offering a limited-time rebate for IBM partners that move customers from Microsoft Exchange to Lotus Notes and Domino on Linux. The offer gives $20 per licensed Exchange user, or "seat," maxing out at $20,000.
In addition, IBM is offering a service to have customers' Domino servers hosted on a trial basis rather than have the software installed on in-office servers.
The expanded competitive offer is the latest salvo between IBM and Microsoft, the two dominant suppliers of e-mail and collaboration software to corporate customers.
In January of this year, Microsoft released a set of software tools designed to simplify the process of moving Domino data onto Exchange.
In a recent interview, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said, "We have more big customers than ever looking to do Notes-to-Exchange migrations."