IBM to invest $1bn on DB2 development

NEWS IBM is to spend $1bn on the next version of its flagship database product, DB2. The company this week unveiled version 7 of the software and said the money will be spent on product development and support staff. IBM is positioning DB2 as the database for the ebusiness market, and is targeting dot-com companies and enterprise-level organisations. The company also announced what it described as a unique pricing structure for ASPs. Under the system, the database can be bought at a knock-down price with IBM receiving a percentage of the revenue generated on a 'per subscriber' or 'per transaction' basis.