Chief executive Peter Zotto said Celtix, developed by a community of programmers including Iona, would account for "probably less than 10%" of the company's revenue in its first year but would begin to grow in importance over the coming years.

Iona's technology is used by large corporations to integrate different software and help their IT systems run more smoothly. To date its software has been proprietary, developed solely by the company and sold on a traditional licence-fee basis. The open-source project is a new departure.

Open-source developers make their source code freely available so that programmers outside the organisation and users can view the code, make changes and build new versions of the software without paying a licence fee. The developers then make money through support services, royalty payments and subscription fees for software updates.