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IBM plans development centre in Madras

A senior delegation of IBM executives visited Madras a few weeks ago to take stock of the infrastructure facilities. The team is also said to have had extensive discussions with the representatives of the state government.

"We are looking at expanding our software development activities in India and we are always thinking of setting up more centres as an on-going process," Ravi N Marwaha, chief executive officer and managing director, Tata IBM and IBM Global Services, said.

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"We already have quite a strong presence in Madras through our marketing and service operations," Marwaha said.

IBM operates in India through two joint ventures with the Tatas - Tata IBM and IBM Global Services. While the former sells IBM hardware and industry-specific IT solutions, the latter offers IT services and software development.

IBM Global currently has two development centres in Bangalore and Pune.

"If IBM decides to go ahead with its plans to set up a development centre in the city, the investment in terms of money may not be very high. However, it will have a very strong spin-off in terms of employment and other benefits it will create in the city," a senior state government official said.

International software majors including Alcatel and EDS have already set up shop in the city. Others including Sun Microsystems are also likely to follow suit.

Domestic software majors like Infosys and Wipro, too, have recently decided to move to Madras.

Madras is fast emerging as a favourite destination for software companies, mainly because of its relatively low land cost, good communications infrastructure and abundance of quality human resources.

During the last one year or so, investments of over Rs 7 billion have been committed in the city. Alcatel, with a proposed Rs 3.5 billion development centre, leads the race.

Infosys Technologies, which already has two centres in the city, is now in the process of finalising the details of a Rs 500 million plus software campus in the city.

The campus is to be benchmarked against some of the best development centres in the world.

The TN government, on its part, has been aggressive in attracting IT investments.

- Compiled from the Indian media

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