IBM India grows 37 p.c. YoY in 2006

BANGALORE: IBM India today said that it recorded a year on year growth rate of 37 per cent in 2006.

While this rate of growth, spurred by increased IT spend in the domestic market, is less compared to the previous year that stood at 55 per cent.

Shanker Annaswamy, regional general manager, IBM India/South Asia, attributed the lesser growth to the larger installed base that the company has set up in the country.

“We are doing almost double the market growth rate of 13-15 per cent. We are the fastest growing BRIC country,” said Annaswamy.

It was in 2006 that IBM chairman Sam Palmisano made a commitment of $6 billion investment spread over three years in India.

The company has added 10,000 employees to its total workforce last year taking the total count now to 53,000. Some of the announced investment went into the setting up of centers like the IBM innovation center for business partners, high performance on demand solutions lab, services innovation research center, IBM research lab (telecommunications research and innovation center, SoA solution center and others.

IBM today has 35 technology and delivery centers.

Besides this, Annaswamy said, the company is also investing in imparting training on open standards based technologies to more than 80,000 students in 745 colleges in India.

He said this year IBM intends to enhance partnerships with governments, work with academics to introduce a services science curriculum.

Some of the focus areas for the company this year are the middleware offerings and Service oriented Architecture, virtualization and grid technology.

The company also plans to enhance its SMB focus this year and would target tier two and three towns.

Annaswamy said that the services pipeline for the year is looking healthy and that new segments like retail, healthcare and aerospace are spending a lot more on IT.

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