For years, the IBM mainframe business has been running on an ever-accelerating treadmill.

The company must go faster and faster, with performance improvements and price cuts, just to keep mainframe technology in place and relevant in modern corporate data centers.

That campaign has been remarkably effective, defying predictions of the mainframe's demise year after year.

But now, IBM wants to go further. It is to make a series of announcements Monday introducing software tools, academic programs and support for outside developers that IBM says are intended to bring new business and new programmers to the mainframe. IBM is trying to position the mainframe for corporate customers as a "hub of Internet-based computing."

The announcements, according to analysts briefed on them in advance, signal a shift from defense to offense in the company's mainframe strategy. Last month, IBM introduced a machine priced at $100,000, about half the previous starting price for its mainframes, which can run up to several million dollars. The announcement of the low-end mainframe was made in China, which IBM regards as a promising market for the machines.

"IBM is actually trying to expand their base in the mainframe business," said John Phelps, an analyst at the technology research firm Gartner. "It's trying to attack new markets."

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