Manoj Saxena, chairman and CEO of Webify, will continue to manage Webify and will take on additional responsibilities for IBM's SOA strategy, according to the companies.

"What we see here is the creation of a very large market for SOA in the next three or four years," Saxena said. The merger will help Webify increase its reach to customers around the world, he said. "From a shared point of view, Webify and IBM have a very similar point of view."

All of Webify's 120 employees, including 70 in Austin and 50 in Mumbai, India, will now become employees of IBM, he said.

Amy Wohl, an analyst at Wohl Associates in Narberth, Pa., said the acquisition is no surprise because the two companies were already partners. What the deal does is give IBM a proven product line that it can quickly plug into its existing WebSphere family, she said.

"IBM will be able to go to those markets right away with Webify and be able to provide the piece parts" that customers can use to bring together their varied IT applications, she said. "The customers are saying they'd like to do this [SOA strategy], but they'd like to have some building blocks to start with instead of starting from scratch."