With the partnership, both companies will work together to integrate the features and functionality of Polaris Intellect Suite GeneS (generalized services) with Webify Industry Fabric to deliver transformative business benefits and outcomes. Per the agreement, Polaris will also establish a Webify SOA practice to deliver integrated solutions to banking and insurance customers globally.

"The Webify Industry Fabric will provide banking customers with the ability to better configure, control and govern complex SOA environments. In addition, the combined service-oriented business application solution from Polaris and Webify for banking, financial services and insurance will further strengthen the position of both organizations as leaders in the SOA space," said Koen Van den Brande, Chief Technology Officer, Polaris Software. He added, "The relationship with Webify will also accelerate Polaris' strategy of delivering SOA-based legacy modernization programs to larger banks, as part of its Smart Legacy Modernization offering".

Globally, service-oriented architecture (SOA) continues to gather momentum as enterprises become more aware of the benefits of SOA enabled legacy modernization to deliver improved flexibility and time to market without expensive rip-and-replace of legacy investments. Gartner Group estimates that there are over 200 billion lines of COBOL code in existence and according to IBM, 70 percent of the world's business data is processed by COBOL applications, and 30 billion COBOL-based transactions are processed daily.

According to Bobby Soni, Chief Strategy Officer, Webify Solutions, "We welcome Polaris Software as a strategic business partner and an integral member of our Alliance program. Webify creates the opportunity for Polaris' rich business content to be made available as a set of loosely coupled and adaptive business services that can be quickly leveraged to deliver business- centric solutions." He added, "Together, we will provide customers with flexible options for assembling and deploying business content which will lead to a spectrum of interesting and customer-friendly consumption models, ranging from traditional licensing to highly customizable subscription and syndicated offerings."