UST Global opens campuses in Kerala
Gods’ own country, Kerala, is fast becoming an IT hub apart from being a favourite tourist destination. UST Global, a provider of IT services and BPO solutions, is scaling upwards its operations here by opening two campuses. Spread over an area of 36 acres, the Thiruvananthapuram campus represents one of the most ambitious IT projects in Kerala, with Phase 1 creating 5000 jobs by early 2009. The Kochi facility, which is the second center, features a total built up area of 200,000 square feet on eight floors. The center that has started with a strength of 250 will scale up to accommodate 2000 IT professionals within two years.

IBM’s SOA Leadership Center in Bangalore: 1st in Asia Pacific
The 73,000 strong IBM India has witnessed a 40 percent growth in headcount from last year. Now in India the big get bigger and IBM is riding the wave to open a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) Leadership Center in Bangalore. The center is the first of its kind in Asia Pacific and the fourth in a series of SOA Leadership Centers planned across the world. It will be fully functional during the first quarter of 2008 and the center will work closely with universities to address skill shortages evident in fresh graduates. The heavy scaling especially in the telecom and banking space, are driving companies to be nimble which in turn is facilitating the adoption of SOA.

Marlabs expands India operations
With the inauguration of a new 600-seater facility in Bangalore, Marlabs, a provider of technology services and solutions is expanding its operations in India. The move is to integrate their three facilities in Bangalore under one roof. The new facility will enable product development, application development, and support in India, which implies that significant domain knowledge, and IP would be built in India as well. The company has been operational since 2000 employing over 400 professionals and plans to raise its headcount to over 2000 in the next
two years.