SOA Software Inc., formerly Digital Evolution, on Monday is announcing its acquisition of ThoughtDigital LLC, which will add event-based reliable messaging to the SOA Software product line.

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

ThoughtDigital"s technology is based on the Web Services Reliable Messaging and Web Services Notification specifications, according to Eric Pulier, executive chairman and founder of SOA Software. The technology will be integrated with SOA Software"s Service Manager product, which provides security, management, and governance of Web services, Pulier said. Integration will be completed in about a month.

Reliable messaging is critical for Web services, said Pulier. "It"s very important because organizations cannot effectively scale their use of Web services in the enterprise without reliable messaging. In general, the way that this has been done is either with proprietary solutions or by not actually rolling out Web services," he said.

An analyst said the acquisition is indicative of consolidation of multiple technologies.

"Specifically, the areas of management, security, registries, and aspects of event-driven integration are increasingly being asked for as a consolidated package by customers," said Ronald Schmelzer, senior analyst at ZapThink, in an e-mail response to questions. "As SOA Software seeks to increase their visibility and brand in SOA (service-oriented architecture), they will likely have to be the acquirers in order to prevent themselves from being consolidated from the market."

Service Manager costs approximately US$80,000. SOA Software acknowledges overlap between Service Manager and ESB products because both provide messaging services. But an ESB does not offer comprehensive Web services management like Service Manager does, according to SOA Software. Service Manager can complement an ESB.

SOA Software announced its name change on March 7.