Global IT giant IBM has acquired privately-held Webify, founded by Indian American Manoj Saxena.

Although the financial terms have not been disclosed, IBM has said that around 120 employees of Webify working in Texas and Mumbai would become part of IBM, according to the Silicon India magazine.

The Austin, Texas-based Webify’s programmes help insurance companies, healthcare companies and banks share data among various software systems that otherwise would not be able to communicate with one another. It provides hundreds of industry-specific, pre-built standards-based accelerators, tools and frameworks.

With this acquisition, IBM will expand into the fast-growing market of integrating corporate software systems. The acquisition will help IBM to take advantage of its strengths in business consulting, IT services and software to develop high-value tools that help companies optimise and transform their businesses.

Webify technology will be immediately integrated into IBM Software Group under the WebSphere brand. "What we see here is the creation of a very large market for service-oriented architecture (SOA) in the next three or four years," Mr Saxena said at a press meet held to announce the acquisition. The merger will help Webify increase its reach to customers around the world. "From a shared point of view, Webify and IBM have a very similar point of view," he was quoted as saying.

Jharkhand will soon establish a Rs 750-million ($16 million) wireless park, where companies like Nokia, Siemens and Motorola are expected to set up shop, in collaboration with an NRI.

The 20-acre park near Ormanjhi block, 25 km from here, is the brainchild of Ramji Prasad, a Denmark-based NRI. Prasad, who is a native of Ranchi, met chief minister Arjun Munda Thursday and presented a project report for the park, which would be the first of its kind in India.

Mr Prasad is an alumnus of the Birla Institute of Technology-Mesra (BIT-Mesra) here. "The park will be inaugurated by February next year. We hope that land acquisition will be completed in one or two months," said Mr Prasad.

"We will extend all possible support to open the wireless park. The state government is dedicated to ensuring the development of the state and for that we should keep ourselves updated with latest technology," added Mr Munda.

Mr Munda has constituted a three-member committee to look into the establishment of the park. Its members include secretaries of the IT and land and revenue departments, besides the vice-chancellor of BIT-Mesra