IBM yesterday let loose a broadside of new web-based software tools for businesses, ratcheting up its aggressive strategy to push key business software onto the Internet. The software release is impressive in its scale, if somewhat obscure for the non-techie: The big ticket items are tools that allow businesses to build web applications, but there are also some industry-specific starter applications, including one for health care.

In all, Big Blue announced "four new products, 23 upgraded products, and 11 services," writes InformationWeek which notes also that this represents just part of $1 billion IBM is investing in "service-oriented architecture" (SOA) initiatives this year.

SOA is the operative buzzword here. As CNET writes, "SOA is not a specific product. It's a design approach where individual business services, such as authenticating networks or pulling up customer information, are used in different applications." That's supposed to let businesses build applications more quickly and cost-effectively. But from a business perspective, the new modular architecture adds an important new twist to IBM's old business model. While there will still be substantial software development projects ahead, SOA paves the way for IBM to sell its web-hosted software on a subscription basis - like a utility.