IBM to open 4th facility in Chennai

International Business Machines (IBM) is set to open its next major facility in Chennai. The approximately 3.75-lakh square feet centre, currently under construction at the DLF IT park at Manapakkam in Chennai, will be IBM's fourth facility in Chennai and is expected to be operational by the end of June this year.

The facility, which will function as IBM's global services delivery centre, will provide application development and delivery services for the Armonk, New York-headquartered technology giant's domestic and international clients out of Chennai.

Industry sources added that IBM's employee headcount at the new centre could well touch 1,700 to 2,000 employees by the middle of calendar 2009.

IBM has been keen to scale up its existing application delivery capabilities out of Chennai through a fourth centre. The new application delivery facility will have the capacity to house 3,000 employees. IBM as well as long-term business partner TCS are presently undertaking fitout activity at the DLF IT Park premises where their new leased facilities will come up.

IBM has been planning a ramp-up in Chennai for its application development and services delivery division, also called Global Delivery GBS, with its announcement late last year that the new facility would be ready in the beginning of 2007.

The company's increased thrust on services delivery out of India is in keeping with IBM boss Sam Palmisano's avowed goal of moving more and more away from its traditional commoditised hardware businesses into the higher-margins application and services-centric business model over the coming years.

The mega DLF IT park is planned over an area of 6 million square feet spread over 41 acres, and all its eleven blocks are expected to be fully operational for different company units by August this year. Security solutions company Symantec had opened its research and development centre at the park earlier this month.

IBM is currently in the process of conducting its 'Re-inventing Education' program with the Corporation of Chennai, to impart professional development and training for teachers working in Corporation schools within the city limits.

The company now has operations in 15 Indian cities, including Bangalore, Chennai, New Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata, and a workforce of over 53,000 people.