IBM opens dedicated IT services research center in Bangalore

BANGALORE: In an effort to promote innovation in the IT services arena, infotech major IBM today announced the opening of a research center in Bangalore, which would look purely at services.

This center, which would look purely at services, would act as the extended arm of IBM's India Research Lab (IRL) located in New Delhi.

This announcement comes as the company is on a big hiring spree in India and speculation that IBM plans to cut jobs at other locations and hire thousands more in India. The company already has a 23,000 strong IT services team in the country.

Briefing the media here today, Dr P Gopalakrishnan, director, IBM's India Research Lab, said,” We will be looking at how technology can improve the capabilities and efficiency of delivery. This would include the whole spectrum of services from infrastructure management, application maintenance, BTO to BPO services.”

Emphasizing the need to take services delivery to the next level, Dr Krishna Nathan, VP, services, IBM Research, Zurich, said that Bangalore was the ideal place to set up the center. “The whole services landscape is here in Bangalore and this is ideal for us since we are where the action is. This would allow us to work with the services delivery team and have a better understanding of client problems.”

The center would start of initially with a team of 10 engineers and would grow subsequently depending on the volume of demand, said Gopalakrishnan.

IBM Research has centers in US and China, which also look into improving IT services. “We want to give our customers choice and flexibility and also increase automation of processes,” said Dr Nathan.

IBM Research division which consists of 3000 engineers and researchers, has centers spread across countries including China, India, Japan, US, Israel and Switzerland.