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IBM, Andhra Pradesh govt sign strategic deal

The agreements were signed in the presence of Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu, IBM's Asia-Pacific President Robert C Timpson and Dewang Mehta, executive director, National Association of Software and Service Companies.

The agreement for setting up School of Enterprise-Wide Computing as part of the proposed Indian Institute of Information Technology here was signed on behalf of the state government by R Chandrashekhar, secretary, Department of Information Technology and Ravi Marwaha, managing director and CEO, Tata IBM Limited.

Chandrasekhar said the proposed IIIT, which will be industry-driven, industry-financed and industry-managed, would offer both long-term and short-term courses in information technology. The state government will provide the land and buildings for the institute and all other expenditure will be borne by the industry. Major IT companies will set up schools, which would be part of IIIT, in their areas of core competence.

The IBM School of Enterprise-Wide computing is the first such corporate school to come up under the IIIT. It will be India's premier centre for education in the broad area of enterprise-wide computing. The school will offer credit courses in information technology to undergraduate, graduate and post-graduate students of IIIT. The courses will vary in duration and cover technology, products, systems, architecture, management.

The School of Enterprise-Wide Computing will also run courses in areas identified by IIIT, or of importance to the state government.

The school would provide technological and consulting support to organisations seeking to implement enterprise-wide computing solutions in the country.

The state government will provide the land and buildings to Tata IBM through IIIT for setting up the school, to be located at the IIIT campus. The school will be furnished with modern computer laboratories and a library. Tata IBM will appoint the teaching faculty and equip the school with IBM S/390 mainframe server, RISC/UNIX server and personal computers.

The school is expected to involve a capital expenditure of over Rs 50 million and to have faculty from abroad. As per the agreement, the school, with an annual intake of 750 students, will commence classes within 156 days.

The MoU for forging a strategic partnership in the use of information technology in the state was signed by Ajay Sawhney, managing director, Andhra Pradesh Technology Services Limited and IBM's Ravi Marwaha.

The MoU stipulates collaboration between Tata IBM and APTS for application software development, customisation and training on IBM and affiliated platforms for the state government departments, educational institutions and other agencies wherever IBM products and services are found appropriate.

Tata IBM and APTSL will provide appropriate software, certification and curriculum to universities and engineering colleges for upgrading the skills of students and faculty, improving efficiency and incorporating state of art technologies in the curriculum.

Under the MoU, Tata IBM and APTSL will also explore the possibilities of setting up global campus facilities using Internet technology by positioning digitised educational material on the Internet/intranets. IBM will identify in consultation with APTS two pilot projects which will showcase IBM technologies and demonstrate IBM's core competencies in setting up information systems in government.

Addressing a press conference after the signing of the agreements, Naidu hoped that the state would emerge as a leader in the use of information technology, particularly in the wake of it being designated as "nodal state" by the centre for using information technology.

Referring to a request from Naidu that IBM set up an Electronic Government Institute in the state on the lines of the one set up in Washington DC, Timpson said his company would study the request.

UNI

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