Add Brazil to the short list of countries that IBM has chosen to market a concept that is a combination systems integration lab, software development testing ground, and a place to engage multinational clients seeking solutions that may not be on IBM’s regular menu.
Big Blue announced Tuesday that Brazil, the third-largest IT market in the Americas, will join China, India, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States as the latest to sample its High Performance On Demand Solutions Lab (HiPODS).
The HiPODS center in Brazil will be headquartered in Sao Paolo, Brazil’s largest city.
HiPODS is aimed at large companies with demanding computing needs that can best be met through a forward-looking, consultative approach. Organizations such as eBay, AT&T, and the Bank of China are HiPODS clients.
AT&T“Our mission is supporting our customers with first-of-its-kind solutions, pushing the envelope in areas such as performance management and web 2.0 technology such as blogging, wiki, and search,” said Willy Chiu, vice president of HiPODS.
“As they double and triple their volumes, we can help them build capacity plans,” he said.
Shares of IBM fell $0.56 to close at $80.85 Tuesday.
Global Services Turf?
IBM normally engages its clients via its sales staff, technical staff, or its IBM Global Services unit. HiPODS in some ways seems to be stepping on the turf of IBM Global Services, the company’s systems integration and outsourcing arm.
“We work with Global Services in some of its accounts that require very deep skills, so we can generate insights that Global Services can replicate worldwide,” said Mr. Chiu.
“Sometimes Global Services invites us in because our skills cut across the various business groups in IBM,” he said. “We are sometimes brought in by sales, and develop replicable assets based on products such as WebSphere.”
With a population of more than 186 million, Brazil is South America’s most populous country. It is the fifth-largest in the world both in area and population.
Brazil, like China, has embarked on a nationwide push toward open-source software, particularly in government projects, and that fits neatly into IBM’s similar focus on open source.
“We are bringing Brazil onto the world stage by offering the deep skills that we have brought to India and China,” Mr. Chiu said. “We are replicating much of that in Brazil.”
Contact the writer:CMedford@RedHerring.com
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