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IBM chose to buy itself a holiday gift this year, announcing that it will acquire high-speed data transfer specialist Aspera. Well known in the streaming media industry, Aspera speeds the process of transmitting large files online. IBM plans to add Aspera's abilities to its Managed File Transfer suite. Specifically, IBM says its suite will gain eXtreme File Transfer (XFT) capabilities for moving large files, cloud-optimized transfer and delivery, and file syncing and sharing for desktop and mobile devices.

IBM notes that adding Aspera technology to its suite will help it focus on digital supply chains and commerce, big data and analytics, and cloud computing. While Aspera has made significant inroads with media and entertainment companies (and was awarded an Emmy for Outstanding Achievement in Engineering Development for its Fasp transport technology, which the academy called a game changer), IBM will now apply those same data transfer improvements to the worlds of big data and cloud computing, and will integrate Aspera's Fasp technology to its SoftLayer cloud infrastructure sometime in 2014.

Aspera claims that its technology can reduce data transfer times by up to 99.99 percent. Founded in 2004, Aspera is based in Emeryville, California. VentureBeat says it has an annual revenue between $10 million and $20 million. Neither IBM nor Aspera revealed the purchase price. The acquisition should close in the first quarter of 2014.