IBM chairman on visit to India

Monday, 05 May 2003, 19:30 IST   |    1 Comments
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BANGALORE: IBM CEO Samuel J. Palmisano arrived here Monday to interact with employees and corporate customers, underlines India's growing importance in the tech major's global operations. Palmisano's visit, which has been kept under wraps, follows high-profile trips to India by Microsoft's Bill Gates and Sun Microsystems' Scott McNealy. "India is becoming increasingly important to IBM's global operations. We have our research and development lab here, a global software unit that has 4,700 employees and a BPO," an IBM spokesman said. "Palmisano is here to acquaint himself with the India operations," he said. Palmisano, who took charge as CEO in January, interacted with a handful of CEOs of Indian companies and addressed IBM employees during his daylong visit to India's tech capital. He is scheduled to meet Information Technology Minister Arun Shourie in New Delhi Tuesday. It is not clear if Palmisano will lobby Shourie for a policy in favour of open source software, a critical factor that brought the head honchos of Microsoft and Sun Microsystems to India in the past year. Shourie has maintained that India will not take a stand for or against open source software. A top IBM official told IANS soon after Gates' visit that IBM would make sizeable investments if India favoured open source software. But Palmisano should have been happy when Karnataka Chief Minister S.M. Krishna proposed that IBM set up a Linux development centre at Hubli, about 400 km from here. Hundreds of students at the second Indian Institute of Information Technology (IIIT) at Hubli work on Linux-based applications. Palmisano had a 30-minute meeting with Krishna, posed for photographers but declined to answer questions from reporters. The meeting was described as a courtesy call but the state government suggested that IBM set up shop in the proposed hardware park being set up here. "Palmisano told the chief minister that he would actively consider both suggestions," said Vivek Kulkarni, Karnataka's IT secretary. Karnataka has offered land for IBM to set up its campus. Currently, IBM Global Services India (IGSI) operates out of several offices in the city. IGSI has become the most serious threat, along with Accenture, to Indian IT majors like Infosys Technologies and Wipro in providing offshore services to customers worldwide. Its presence in India has put tremendous pressure on billings and margins of Indian companies, reflecting on tech stocks sliding down. IBM has also taken 80,000 square feet of space at the International Tech Park or ITPL to house its financial transaction BPO. "It should house over 1,000 people soon," Kulkarni said.
Source: IANS
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