IBM has agreed to purchase Princeton Softech, a privately-held firm that makes data handling software.

Princeton Softech's offerings include data archiving, classification, data privacy and test data management applications.

Big Blue hopes to add Princeton Softech's software to its Information on Demand campaign. The program is aimed at helping enterprises organise and manage large amounts of data while separating and archiving unused data.

IBM said the main draw of Princeton Softech was its ability to manage and protect data without slowing down database performance or dramatically raising costs. Big Blue claims that many enterprises are at, or near to spending half their IT budgets on data storage and management.

"Organisations of all sizes worldwide face the challenge of effectively managing their surging data volumes, particularly given growing governance and compliance requirements," said Ambuj Goyal, general manager of IBM's information management branch.

"The combination of IBM and Princeton Softech will provide our customers and partners with a single solution to manage risk more effectively and keep up with the variety of regulatory and enterprise data governance requirements."

Upon the close of the acquisition, expected to take place before the end of the year, Princeton Softech will be assimilated into IBM's Information Management Software division. All 240 of Princeton Softech's employees will reportedly make the transition to Big Blue.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed.