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As part of its acknowledged strategy of establishing a non-Windows bridgehead in the enterprise market, IBM will provide a Mac version of Notes 7, despite the fact that Macs are in a tiny minority when it comes to business usage.

IBM declined to comment, although Ken Bisconti, IBM's vice president of Workplace, Portal and Collaboration products told an interviewer

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last week to 'stay tuned' for Mac-related news.

IBM's fresh commitment to the Mac platform comes despite Apple's decision to drop Big Blue's PowerPC chips. However, IBM it is not thought to have been too upset by Apple's defection, which lets it concentrate on PowerPC development for other applications, especially game consoles.

Moreover the company, which is major developer of Linux-based software and servers, is keen to reduce business reliance on Microsoft software. It recently announced support for the Open Document Format, a standard for exchanging documents between applications and platforms that Microsoft has spurned, preferring to create its own version.

'IBM's commitment to open standards-based platforms has provided businesses an alternative to proprietary systems, and addresses the market's demand for greater choice and flexibility in their software needs,' said Bob Sutor, VP of Standards and Open Source at IBM.