The acquisition addresses the need to make previously siloed data and software applications interoperate better, according to IBM. Financial details were not disclosed.

DataPower, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, offers products that improve security and the speed of processing transactions, which simplify SOA deployments by hiding the complexities of handling different message formats.

DataPower products include the X150 Integration Device, which streamlines SOA infrastructure; the XA35 XML Accelerator for XML processing, and the XS40 XML Security Gateway, to provide message-level web services security.

DataPower is the second XML-networking company to be acquired in the past two months. In August, Sarvega was acquired by Intel. Sarvega and DataPower are two of about seven VC-backed companies that comprise the sector.