James Gosling, a vice president and fellow at Sun Microsystems, once quipped that the average software developer spends more on cafe lattes than on tools. Two years after Gosling deadpanned that one-liner, software developers appear to have even more spare change to feed their caffeine habits. Free entry-level products are rapidly become de rigueur in many areas of software, notably in programming tools where there are hundreds of thousands of freely available goods. On Monday, IBM introduced DB2 Express-C, a free database aimed squarely at software developers. It is a trimmed-down version of its commercial product, and IBM limits its deployment to two-processor servers. Oracle and Microsoft also recently introduced free versions, joining a number of existing open-source databases, such as MySQL and PostgreSQL, that can be freely downloaded. The moves by the big three corporate database providers–Oracle, IBM and Microsoft–reflect some of the changing economics of the software business, where freely available open-source products are forcing established vendors to adjust the way they do business, analysts and software industry executives said.

Microsoft founder and Chairman Bill Gates believes cell phones are a better way than laptops to bring computing to the masses in developing nations, according to a published report. The New York Times reports that Craig Mundie, the No. 1 software provider’s vice president and chief technology officer, told the paper that both he and Gates believe that turning a specially configured cell phone into a computer by connecting it to a TV and a keyboard is the best way to spread the power of computing. "Everyone is going to have a cell phone," Mundie told the paper, noting that in places where televisions are already common, a phone could be turned into a computer with a cheap adapter and keyboard. Microsoft has not said how much those products would cost. The proposal is an answer to a plan by Nicholas Negroponte, the founder of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Laboratory, who in November unveiled his prototype for a $100 laptop computer that could help bring computers to hundreds of millions of mostly-poor students worldwide. The Times reports that Negroponte has failed to reach an agreement with Microsoft on including its Windows software in the laptop. That failure prompted Negroponte to use free open-source software in his laptop instead of Windows, and spurred Microsoft executives to discuss an alternative.

Microsoft has released the latest beta version of its Internet Explorer 7 software, giving developers working on its XP operating system an additional preview of the browser’s new features. Dubbed as Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2 Preview for Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2, the company is making the test version of the application available for download from its Web site while confirming that a final release of Internet Explorer 7 for Windows XP will arrive as expected sometime during the second half of 2006. The company also took the wraps off of another additional feature expected in IE 7, Microsoft Windows RSS Platform for Windows XP. In addition to the new RSS tools for developers, Microsoft also claims that the IE 7 beta boasts much improved support for AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML), an increasingly popular technological approach for speeding browsers’ ability to process user commands.

LinuxQuestions.org announced that voting for the 2005 LinuxQuestions.org Members Choice Awards is now open. The Members Choice Awards allow the Linux community to select their favorite products in a variety of categories. Awards will be given out in 20 categories, including Distribution of the Year, Browser of the Year, Office Suite of the Year, Desktop Environment of the Year and Database of the Year. The polls will close on March 16th and winners will have the option of receiving their award at the LinuxWorld Conference and Expo in Boston. Last years winners include Firefox, OpenOffice.org and MySQL.

Fortinet said that it has settled a long-running patent dispute with Trend Micro over antivirus software. The Sunnyvale, Calif.-based vendor of security appliances said that both companies have agreed to urge the U.S. International Trade Commission to dismiss its consideration of the dispute, which centers on Trend Micro’s U.S. Patent 5,623,600. In August, the ITC ordered Fortinet to stop selling its Fortigate products in the United States. At the time, Fortinet said it would work on revamping its products to avoid any infringement on Trend Micro’s patent, and estimated it would do that within three months.

Computer maker Dell said Monday it planned to add 5,000 jobs in India over the next two years, bringing its work force in the country to 15,000. Dell is also looking to set up a manufacturing center in India, a move that could help boost the sale of Dell computers here, President and CEO Kevin Rollins told reporters after a meeting with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. The Round Rock, Texas-based company will hire 700 to 1,000 workers for a new call center in Gurgaon, a satellite town of the capital, New Delhi, Rollins said. The new call center, the company’s fourth in India, will open in April, he said.

Google will face off against the United States government in a federal court on Feb. 22 over whether the Department of Justice can force the search giant to turn over records from its database. The conflict stems from a subpoena demanding information on searches, which Google refused to comply with, citing privacy concerns. The government is attempting to gather data to support a child protection law that was struck down two years ago by the U.S. Supreme Court. Under that law, the government could punish pornography sites that made content easily accessible to minors. However, Google contends that supplying the information would violate the privacy of its users, as well as divulge trade secrets that could help its competitors.

A California man who allegedly duped America Online customers into disclosing their credit card information over the Web was arrested on wire fraud and other charges Thursday. According to the charges, Jeffrey Brett Goodin of Azusa, Calif., used the fraudulently obtained information to make unauthorized charges using the credit and debit cards of his victims. He allegedly tricked his victims, all America Online subscribers, by sending e-mails urging them to "update" their AOL billing information or lose their service–a method known as phishing.

Last week, iSeries marketing vice president Peter Bingaman left Big Blue for a position at LexisNexis, an online law research company. The move comes after 15 months in the iSeries marketing role. Bingaman–along with iSeries general manager Mark Shearer–had been widely credited for turning around public perception of the iSeries during 2005. While it wasn’t exactly mission accomplished, many within the industry saw Bingaman as taking the platform’s message in the right direction.

IBM’s intranet–known inside the company as the "w3 On Demand Workplace,"–has been selected as one of The Year’s 10 Best Intranets by the Nielsen Norman Group, a user experience research firm that advises companies on human-centered product and service design. IBM is the only information technology company recognized in this year’s report.