IBM has acquired integration provider Bowstreet for an undisclosed sum. Bowstreet develops a portal-like technology that gathers data from disparate sources such as customers, partners and suppliers. 

The two companies have shared 100 integration projects with customers over the past three years.

IBM claimed that Bowstreet's technology allows companies to build applications between two and 12 times more quickly than with competing portal tools.

The technology will further complement IBM's service oriented architecture (SOA) initiative, the company said in a statement.

SOA is an architecture to build and maintain applications in an enterprise. Rather than designing applications from the ground up, SOA allows developers to reuse code between departments and combine resources from all over the company.

Using XML and standards from the world of web services, SOA will support both Java and .Net, as well as any of the standards-based integration platforms from companies like Oracle and SAP.

Bowstreet, however, is more about data integration than composite applications.

BEA is currently leading the SOA space with its AquaLogic suite of applications.