Web business application

IBM and Lawson Software extended their partnership to sell business applications to small businesses in specific industries, the two companies announced on Thursday. As part of the deal, IBM will resell Lawson's packaged applications, which are built on IBM's infrastructure software including WebSphere. The applications are designed for simple installation and customized for financial services, fashion, and the food and beverage industries, the companies said. ***

You might have heard about AJAX, a term recently coined by by Jesse Garrett, co-founder of San Francisco consultancy Adaptive Path, for a group of existing Web development technologies like JavaScript and Dynamic HTML. AJAX has gained fame through Google's use of older technologies to build its newest applications such as Google Maps and Gmail. ***

IBM said Monday that version 5 of its WebSphere Portal software will be available August 21. Big Blue's portal software, which presents information from several data sources in a Web browser, introduces enhancements to help workers share and store documents. The server software also includes applications for creating text and spreadsheet and presentations. IBM has also improved the searching capabilities and streamlined the installation process with the update. Pricing for WebSphere Portal is $87,000 per processor. WebSphere Portal Express, which is aimed at small and medium-size businesses, starts at $85 per user or $33,000 per processor. ***