IBM to open fourth facility in Chennai

International Business Machines (IBM) is set to open its next major facility in Chennai. The 3.75 lakh square feet centre, presently under construction at the DLF IT park at Manapakkam, 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. Though the new application delivery facility will have a capacity to house 3,000 employees, IBM officials are expected to reveal the initial headcount at the centre only by the end of this month. IBM as well as long-term business partner Tata Consultancy Service (TCS) are presently undertaking fitout activity at the DLF IT Park premises where their new leased facilities will be coming 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.