August 31, 2009

An Eye on Brazil


Brazil has weathered the recent global economic downturn better than many other countries. In fact, leading analyst firm IDC, predicts the IT market in Brazil will reach $32 billion USD this year alone, and grow nearly 10 percent through 2013. Much of this opportunity is found in faster growing industries such as telecommunications, financial services, healthcare and energy.

To help foster technology and skills growth in the region, IBM launched a Portuguese language version of IBM developerWorks, the world's largest online technical skills resource and community for developers, to support Brazil's growing ecosystem of 300,000 IT professionals. IBM also announced it is making developer instances of its Lotus software available at no-charge to accredited colleges and universities in IBM's Academic Initiative program across Latin America.

The IBM Innovation Center in Sao Paulo, Brazil, is part of a network of 43 centers in 30 countries globally, providing entrepreneurs, business partners, venture capitalists and academics with access to training, consulting services, a broad technical infrastructure, and hands-on assistance to help bring new technologies to market.

In 2008, more than 22,000 business partners attended workshops, seminars and architecture consultations to build their skills on IBM technologies, and over 7,000 new applications were enabled on IBM open standards-based technology at IBM Innovation Centers.

By cultivating and enabling the entire ecosystem -- from student to seasoned professional - we’re helping IBM Business Partners succeed and ensure the innovation of tomorrow.

It sounds like an exciting time for IBM in Brazil!

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