Ajax development tool vendor Backbase has unveiled a new licensing programme designed to appeal to smaller software development shops.

Backbase has been focusing on selling its Asynchronous JavaScript and XML development framework to enterprises such as Bank of America, Canon and Motorola.

The package is currently priced on a per-CPU basis for deployment, test and development servers with prices starting at $6,000 per CPU.

The new pricing model offers a flat fee of $2,000 per developer seat for any Backbase development suite and up to two CPUs.

Developers typically use multiple development tools when crafting Ajax applications. Microsoft's tools are used in 56.3 per cent of these cases, followed by Google's Web Toolkit (38.1 per cent), Eclipse (20.4 per cent ) and Yahoo (19.3 per cent).

Of the developers questioned, just 3.3 per cent were using Backbase, according to the figures from analyst firm Evans Data Corp.

About half of all software developers are expected to write Ajax code by 2008, the firm predicted last year.

The programming technique is slowly moving up the development chain, expanding from a base of hobbyists and web-centric firms to include traditional enterprises.

Evans Data Corp declined to comment on Backbase's move, but did point out that most development organisations with 10 or fewer employees spend less than $5,000 on development tools annually.