IBM says it is buying the software portfolio of Star Analytics Inc, a privately held business analytics firm in California, on undisclosed terms.

The acquisition, another in a string of Big Data and analytics acquisitions, is supposed to advance IBM's business analytics initiatives so clients can get faster access and real-time insight into specialized data sources.

Star Analytics software helps automatically integrate essential information from applications and business intelligence tools across the enterprises, on-premise or from the cloud. It removes custom coding for specialized sources that are hard to maintain and retires manual processes that are cumbersome and time-consuming.

"IBM sees an enormous opportunity for our clients to apply Star Analytics to the information they have stored in their financial applications," said Leslie Rechan, general manager of IBM business analytics, in a statement, "and to then easily access it within their IBM performance management and business intelligence solutions."

It's supposed to let organizations move critical analytics source data at will and use it regardless of which application they need to use it with, providing both flexibility and accessibility, according to Quinlan Eddy, CEO of Star Analytics.

"As part of IBM, we can now bring our technologies to a broader range of clients to help them uncover new untapped growth opportunities."

IBM currently has almost 9,000 dedicated business analytics and optimization consultants, and 400 researchers. Nearly 500 of the patents IBM won lately are supposed to be building blocks for future analytics innovations that will help businesses and governments unlock the power of Big Data.

The Star Analytics acquisition will close this quarter.