BANGALORE, India -- IBM will invest US$6 billion in its operations in India over the next three years, Chairman and CEO Samuel Palmisano told about 10,000 of the company's employees here last week.
The planned investment is three times the amount that IBM spent in the country over the past three years, according to Shanker Annaswamy, managing director of IBM India. He said the additional money will be used to expand IBM's workforce throughout India and to fund several projects, including an upgrade of a lab in Bangalore that develops so-called high-performance on-demand technology offerings.
IBM also plans to set up a telecommunications research center at its Delhi research facility, according to Annaswamy.
The company's Indian operations, which have about 43,000 employees now, are already its largest outside the U.S. The expansion plans are part of a strategy to make "significant investments" in emerging markets, such as India, China and Brazil, that offer a growing potential customer base and vast pools of qualified workers, said Michael Cannon-Brookes, IBM's vice president of business development in India and China.
Philippine government looks to integrate IT
MANILA -- The Philippine Commission on Information and Communication Technology (CICT) plans to hire external consultants to standardize the hardware and application requirements of government agencies and help enforce the integration of systems.
Ramon Sales, who was named the CICT's chairman in late April, said this month that he has directed the head of the commission's Human Capital Development group to organize a team of IT consultants that is intended to serve all 370 of the national government's agencies.
"We need to define the hardware requirements [of agencies] and next bring the applications that would run on top," he said. Sales added that the consultants will also help create IT service centers to help ensure that Philippine agencies meet data backup and disaster recovery requirements.
Wipro agrees to buy retail services firm
BANGALORE, India -- Offshore IT services firm Wipro Ltd. has agreed to acquire Enabler Informatica SA, a Porto, Portugal-based company that does technology work for the retail industry.
The deal is valued at '41 million ($52.7 million U.S.) and is expected to close within 30 days, according to Bangalore-based Wipro. Enabler, which was spun out of the IT unit of Portuguese retailer Modelo Continente SGPS in 1997, has approximately 300 workers and had revenue of about '30 million ($39 million) last year, Wipro said.
Sudip Nandy, chief strategy officer at Wipro, said the acquisition is part of the company's strategy of buying small IT services firms that specialize in niche markets. Wipro has acquired five other small companies in recent months, Nandy said.
Briefly Noted
* China Netcom Group Corp. in Beijing will sell its Asia Netcom subsidiary to Ashmore Investment Management Ltd. and Spinnaker Global Opportunity Fund Ltd. for $168.84 million U.S. China Netcom will continue to use telecommunications services provided by Asia Netcom after the acquisition, which is expected to close within 45 days.
* Oracle Corp. has named Derek Williams to the new position of chairman at its Oracle Asia-Pacific and Japan unit. Williams was previously the unit's executive vice president. In addition, Brian Mitchell was named senior vice president in charge of the Asia-Pacific region, excluding Japan. Mitchell had been responsible for Asia-Pacific strategy, business planning and acquisitions.
* Corrs Chambers Westgarth, an Australian law firm with 920 partners in six cities, is standardizing on Cognos Inc.'s Cognos 8 business intelligence software. Colman Kenna, financial information systems manager at Corrs Chambers Westgarth, said the Cognos software will create a central reporting repository.
-- Computerworld Today (Australia) staff
Global fact
$1.5B: Predicted revenue in 2009 from services related to mobile instant messaging in Europe.
Source: Visiongain Ltd., London