To honor an employee's son who was badly wounded in Iraq, IBM plans to <A HREF="http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/04/03/ibm.donation.ap/index.html?eref=rss_tech">give the U.S. military $45 million worth of Arabic-English translation technology</A> that the Pentagon had been testing for possible purchase.

The offer--made from the highest reaches of the company directly to President Bush--is so unusual that Defense Department and IBM lawyers have been scouring federal laws to make sure the government can accept the donation.