IBM opens Shanghai IT center

Center offers IT services for software development and supports business application packages from Oracle, SAP.

March 28, 2006 8:07 a.m. PT

IBM has opened a new IT services center in China to support customers from Europe, Japan and the United States.

The Shanghai center will offer IT services for software development, maintenance and testing. It will also support the main business application packages from SAP, Oracle and Oracle-owned Siebel Systems.

The site with 700 customer service representatives consolidates IBM's existing IT services centers in Shanghai into a single location in the Waigaoqiao free trade zone and joins IBM's other Chinese IT services centers in Dalian and Shenzhen.

Languages supported at the new Shanghai center include English, German, Japanese and Mandarin.

Other western tech companies are also rushing to expand their operations in China, with Unisys being the most recent to open a 1,000-employee software development facility in Shanghai.

Andy McCue of Silicon.com reported from London.