The pace of change in the open source software business is likely to accelerate in 2007 as developers climb up the software stack from the operating system and databases to applications.

IBM Corp. and Yahoo Inc. have developed a free, entry-level, enterprise search application that at least one analyst believes will seriously disrupt the low-end segment of this market where Google Inc. has been selling many of its Mini search devices.

Over two years in the making, Sun Microsystems Inc. is due to release the latest version of its Java Platform Standard Edition (Java SE) software Monday, placing particular emphasis on the application development platform's support for other scripting languages.

BitTorrent Inc. has acquired ľTorrent, another file-sharing application that uses BitTorrent's software protocol, it announced Thursday.

Motorola Inc. said Friday it would acquire Good Technology Inc., the software firm that provides the mobile e-mail application on Motorola's Q smartphone and on many competing devices.

Adobe Systems Inc. will contribute source code to the Mozilla Foundation as the two organizations aim to establish a standard scripting language that developers can use to create interactive applications for Adobe's Flash Player and Mozilla's Firefox browser.

Google Inc. has launched Google Apps for Your Domain, a suite of hosted collaboration applications for small to medium-size businesses, universities, groups and affinity organizations, with plans to expand to larger companies by year's end.

Taiwan's state-controlled telecom company plans to invest NT$100 billion (US$3.1 billion) over the next five years to upgrade its network and further develop applications and services based on Web 2.0, a spokeswoman said Monday.

Google Inc. has released a free version of the SketchUp application for creating, viewing and modifying 3D images it acquired when it bought @Last Software Inc. in March.

Apple Computer Inc. is facing a lawsuit over technology within its popular iPod digital music player and two related applications.

Multimedia developer Jered Cuenco calls it the "gray-box application" phenomenon: A Web developer, befuddled by a graphic designer's computer-drawn mock-ups, delivers a prototype full of generic gray buttons, plain white backgrounds, oversized headlines and other crimes against visually interesting user interfaces.

A készülő szoftver legnagyobb újítása az Actionscript 3, amely kiváló lehetőséget teremt RIA (Rich Internet Application) alkalmazások készítésére.

IBM Corp. has collaborated with two universities to develop several speech-enabled Web applications for mobile phones, the company said Friday.

Business application vendor SAP AG is adding a new support service targeting customers who want more than the company's standard offering, but not its pricier high-end service product.