Dated August 13, 2002
Business Standard

IBM, the world's largest infotech company, today said that the company's investments in India would now be dictated by the success of the company in India as the market conditions have become more trying.

"Market conditions have changed. Our investments would be dictated by the success that we have in the market. But India is a key market for us," said Michael Lawrie, senior vice president and group executive, IBM Corporation, while addressing the CII CEO's forum here today.

This is the first time the company is making such a decision as the company earlier used to work out advanced budgeting for capital expansion in the country.

The company, according to him, will make investments in the area of people, technology and facilities. "We will make investments, but it will depend on the returns the market offers," he pointed out.

On asked about the goal of the company in India, he said the company wants to become the number one IT solutions and services provider in India. "IBM wants to become the number one IT solutions provider in the country. We are looking at areas like eGovernance," Lawrie said.

Stating that IBM would be supporting any endeavor to boost non-proprietary or open-ended platforms like Linux, he said Indian companies while integrating various processes should opt for multi-vendor software to be able to trim costs.

Earlier speaking on the occasion, IT secretary Shri. R.R. Shah said multinational companies like IBM who has the financial and technical muscle should look at the demand for low-end computing devices with limited functionality as it caters to a large section of population in countries like India.

IBM has also signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) to develop a national High Performance Computing lab using Linux-ready platforms from IBM to develop applications and research in eGovernance solutions, life sciences, seismic analysis and weather forecasting. The lab is scheduled for commissioning at C-DAC's knowledge park in Bangalore by the year-end.

"This is significant to IBM since India is not only a strategic market for IBM and a resourceful base for it skills, but also as another area where the true value of Linux based computing can be shown," Lawrie said here.

As per the MoU, C-DAC would also collaborate with IBM's India Research Laboratory in areas such as Hindi speech recognition, weather forecasting, eGovernance framework and grid computing technologies.

IBM has also appointed C-DAC as a system integration partner for High Performance Computing in India, and the partnership would focus on state and central government departments, education and government funded scientific and research institutions.

Speaking on the occasion, C-DAC's Executive Director, Shri. R.K. Arora said that the corporation was engaged in setting up the lab with the system design based on IBM computing nodes.

"It will use the suite of tools and showcase applications on Linux and professional Unix," he said adding this would also facilitate development of computational grid.

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