Microsoft Targets Lotus Notes, Domino

Microsoft said Tuesday it would set its sights on Lotus Notes and Domino customers, providing new tools to assist in the migration to Microsoft Office products. As a further incentive, these tools would be available on the company's Web site as a free download.

In addition to migration tools, Microsoft also announced the availability of Exchange connectors for Lotus and Domino. This would allow customers who wish to continue using IBM's suite employ Exchange Server on the backend.

"Today we are responding to the strong demand we're seeing from customers using Lotus Notes/Domino who are planning a transition to this platform," Office Server Group vice president Kurt DelBene said. "This announcement is a big step in our overall strategy toward helping these customers make the move so they can begin to take advantage of our platform's benefits."

Bill Gates recently fingered IBM as his company's biggest rival, contradicting the widespread belief that Google was Redmond's top foe. However, the two companies still work together on some projects, including the PowerPC CPU that runs the Xbox 360.

Microsoft says it recognizes a need for the ability to customize and build workflow-enabled applications for SharePoint, and it plans to address this in the coming months.

Microsoft has pointed to a list of corporations who have recently made the transition to its software in just the last six months, including Adaptec, BASE, CompUSA, SGS, and Wonderware among others.

To assist in the transition, Microsoft has employed the help of Casahl Technology, Quest Software and SourceCode, who have agreed to provide complementary solutions to assist those companies that choose to make the move.

"Today we are licensing our migration software at a rate averaging 50,000 seats per month, which we see as a strong indicator of the volume of customers moving to Microsoft's collaboration platform," Quest Software's David Waugh said.