Iona Technologies, the Irish software company, said yesterday it had bought new software from the US firm EDS in a move that would improve business and result in a $5 million (£3.35 million) one-time charge.

The technology offers software developers a faster and easier approach to building Internet and network-based applications built from components, Iona said, and would be integrated into future releases of the its well-known Orbix product.

"The technology promises significant reductions in the time and costs involved in creating and deploying software component-based applications for different operating systems, programming languages, component models and messaging environments," Iona said.