*IBM* wants to offer business customers an alternative option to avoid them falling into high costs by relying on a single vendor such as Microsoft???

Come on. IBM has been changing their act over the past couple of decades. They know where their strengths lie. And as long as you are not running their Z-servers they know you can switch any which way you want.

And it only took the loss of lots of customers when they tried to force people off OfficeVision/VM to Lotus Notes to make them realise that. Sigh.