During last year, IBM emerged as the No. 4 Network Integrator (NI) in the country with an NI revenue of Rs 109.36 crore, growing by 72 percent over last year. The start of the year saw IBM reorganizing its NI division in a new way and calling it the Integrated Technology Services division. This strategy was worked out to include the product support team in the portfolio of the network integration services group, thus forming a one-window approach.

IBM’s networking success during last year came from this totality factor, which is further strengthened by the business consulting group and even an investment arm, things that others cannot boast of. Apart from Compaq, it was the only NI which had its own IT hardware to offer also as part of the networking solution.

While IBM practices the end-to-end policy on one hand, it firmly believes that end-to-end does not mean a bouquet of products from a single vendor. Though it has strong relationship going with both Cisco and 3Com, it is ever conscious of choosing the best of breed products for the optimum solutions that it offers to the customers. This is the sort of best practice that could make IBM a more acceptable network integrator to the telecommunications sector, than others in the industry. In addition to this, with global experience in hand and crucial partnerships with telecom majors like Lucent Technologies and Nortel Networks, IBM is all set to take on the emerging telecommunications projects this year.