IBM Acquires DataPower

ARMONK, N.Y. -- IBM today announced it has acquired DataPower, a Cambridge, Mass.-based, privately-held provider of products that help improve security and speed the processing of computer transactions. Financial details were not disclosed.

IBM acquired DataPower to help companies improve the performance, security and management of business processes built of reusable, open-standards-based software components, which operate independently from the applications and computing platforms on which they run. This increasingly popular approach, called Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), combines business operations with information technology. According to Gartner, an IT industry research firm, SOA will provide the basis for 80 percent of new software development projects by 2008. IBM plans to introduce a family of SOA appliances based on DataPower technology.

The widespread adoption of open standard technology has enabled software applications to better interoperate across business units and externally with third parties. While this has helped companies improve productivity, quickly respond to changing business needs and seize opportunities, it has also placed new demands on IT systems, which can become overburdened from processing high volumes of Web services traffic and resource-intensive malicious attacks.

"With more companies taking a modular approach to running business processes through a Services Oriented Architecture, there's a greater need for technology to deal with the commensurate increases in Web services traffic, which can overburden IT systems," said Robert LeBlanc, general manager, WebSphere, IBM Software Group. "DataPower's products address these challenges."

IBM Corp.

DataPower Technology Inc.