IBM is getting serious about sub-Saharan Africa -- both as a consumer and producer of high-end computing.
For the past year, Mark Dean, an IBM Fellow and vice president of the company's venerable Almaden Research Center in San Jose, has traveled widely across the region, looking for new opportunities for the computer company. In the process, Dean brokered a donation of an IBM supercomputer to the Center for High Performance Computing in Cape Town and helped to launch a mentoring program that pairs IBM researchers with African university students.
Dean, who will give a public talk on new African opportunities in information technology on May 8 at Almaden, is helping to give sub-Saharan Africa a higher profile at IBM. In a recent op-ed in the San Jose Mercury News, he said that the cell phone is emerging as the central information device in the region.
In an interview, Dean told me he hopes IBM will double its number of employees in sub-Saharan Africa over the next three to five years. Today, the company employs about 2,000 people, mostly in South Africa, a traditional stronghold for IBM. Dean says gets about $2 billion in revenue from the region, with about half coming from South Africa.
IBM isn't only selling into Africa. Dean envisions African engineers and codewriters creating a new-generation of cell phone applications. While Dean thinks Africans need to raise their skill levels, IBM isn't waiting to give talented Africans a chance at creating products. The company recently opened a "software solutions lab" in South Africa to create products. IBM also wants to sell more back-end computer systems to support digital services offered over cell phones.
"We're taking baby steps," Dean says. But he's convinced that "IBM should invest more and develop our brand" in the region.
