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IBM Offers Cash to Migrate from Exchange

The battle for e-mail market share spawned countless migration offers over the years. One of the more interesting ones is active now. IBM is putting its money where its mouth is when it comes to drawing Microsoft Exchange customers to Lotus Notes and Domino. A new channel-focused program called "Migrate to the Penguin" is part of IBM's Move2Lotus program. IBM is now offering a limited time rebate program for IBM software resellers. Each seat migrated, up to 1,000 seats, is good for a $20 rebate from IBM, with a maximum of $20,000 per partner. The program started in the United States and Canada, and will go worldwide over the course of the year.

See IBM's press release on the program here.

SQL Everywhere
Microsoft has a new edition of SQL Server 2005 in development. Microsoft describes the new Everywhere Edition as a lightweight, compact subset of other editions that can synchronize with those editions and uses the same programming model. It's not clear how Microsoft will differentiate the Everywhere Edition from the Express Edition of SQL Server. More on that as details emerge. Meanwhile, Microsoft will make the new database mirroring capabilities of SQL Server 2005 live when Service Pack 1 ships.

Security Bulletins on the Way
Keep your eyes on Windows Update tomorrow -- it's another big week for Microsoft patches. The Microsoft Security Response Center alerted users last week that five patches are coming. Four are for Windows, one is for Office. One of the Windows patches is supposed to fix the high-profile, zero-day exploit in Internet Explorer.

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Action Pack Update
Microsoft's Action Pack is in the mail, if you're a subscriber. The quarterly bundle of software is for partners to test and deploy internally. Highlights include Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0, Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2 Standard Edition and Microsoft Windows Server 2003 R2 Standard Edition. The next scheduled kit goes out in July.

Go here for more info (MSPP registration required).

Posted by Scott Bekker on April 10, 2006


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