Perth was the first stopping point in Australia when the director of IBM’s newly established Australian development laboratory toured his operations.
In his new role, IBM distinguished engineer Glenn Wightwick will be responsible for five R&D centres across Australia, including two in Perth.
The Australian programming centre in West Perth, which was established in the 1980s, has about 160 staff writing software and tools for IBM mainframe computers.
IBM substantially expanded its Perth presence earlier this year when it acquired US software company Micromuse Inc, which has 40 development staff in the city.
The Micromuse lab is now known as the Tivoli Netcool development lab and develops technology for IBM’s Netcool business assurance solutions.
Mr Wightwick, who has transferred from Shanghai to take the new role, said the growing scale of IBM’s Australian operation was a key factor in his move.
“There is well and truly enough critical mass here to create a country based development lab,” he told WA Business News.
Mr Wightwick said his job was to bring together the various development teams in Australia under a single umbrella and “look to expand their capability and look for synergies across the different products they are developing”.
He would also be alert to innovations happening in the university sector, noting that Micromuse had a strong Perth presence because of its earlier acquisition of software company Network Harmoni, founded in 1996 by Curtin University graduates Mike Schulze and Craig Farrell.
Mr Wightwick said the opening of a country based development lab would provide added status for Australia within IBM.
The five R&D centres in Australia – in Perth, Sydney, Canberra and the Gold Coast – have a total of 420 staff.
Mr Wightwick said the future of each centre would depend on the quality of their work and the timely delivery of their services.
