Mumbai, Sept 23: IBM India has formulated a multi-pronged strategy to fuel its India growth plans. The company has decided to begin manufacturing personal computers (PCs) in the country while increasing its focus on e-business opportunities. IBM World Trade Corp, which recently bought over the Tatas stake in Tata IBM, has renamed its Indian subsidiary as IBM India Ltd. The company also announced its future plans at a press conference in Mumbai today.IBM will manufacture PCs at its existing facilities in Pondicherry. IBM sells its Aptiva and PC 300 Series range of desktops and ThinkPad laptops in the country. It also markets a range of products and solutions including Netfinity servers, AS/400e, RS/6000 and S/390, all servers, workstations, network computers and printers in India.
The decision to manufacture PCs is important since IBM is seeking to increase market penetration with large volumes and competitive prices, says IBM India managing director and chief executive, Ranjit Limaye.
At present, IBM computers have been ranked way below market leaders Compaq and Hewlett Packard in terms of market share by the International Data Corporation (IDC) in its surveys. Moreover, low priced and high configuration PCs from domestic manufacturers are selling in large quantities, IDC said.
At present, imported computers attract a duty of 38 per cent on average on the cost insurance freight (CIF). The government has also been thinking on the lines of removing duties completely by 2005. Limaye said that having a manufacturing base in such a large market would be crucial for IBM. He, however, refused to disclose details of price and quantity.
IBM will conduct road shows in the next few months to display its products and solutions in 16 cities across the country.
IBM will focus on e-business opportunities in consumer, business, government and education sectors. Business intelligence, work flow and network and mangement systems will be the major areas of concentration for the company. IDC is expecting the overall e-commerce in Asia Pacific to rise to $15 billion in 2002.
IBM Global Services India offers services in networking services, product support and strategic outsourcing, systems integration and consulting in India. IBM has two labs in the country, which as part of the Solutions Partnership Centre programme, assists small and medium level IT companies to develop solutions in IBM platforms. "We are expecting a large scale increase in user base through this project," Limaye said.
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