IBM has become one the software industry's most generous sugar daddies, ever-ready to buy smaller companies with technology that it covets. The computing giant announced plans in the past three weeks to acquire three software companies: FileNet, MRO Software and Webify. If they all go through, the bill will total more than $2.3 billion. And that's just the announcements made in the last month. If all recent deals go through, IBM will have shelled out more than $9 billion (all in cash) since 2003 on acquisitions, with the bulk of the money going to 31 software companies. Beyond the benefit of added revenue, the thing that has unleashed IBM's purse strings is the computing industry's <A HREF="http://news.zdnet.com/2100-3513_22-6107864.html?tag=nl.e589">shift to service-oriented architectures.</A>