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In line with its corporate vision of expanding its reach into growing and emerging markets, International Business Machines (IBM) Corporation in strategic partnership with Tri-continental Limited, a major distributor of IBM products in Africa has set-up the first innovation centre in sub-saharan Africa .

The centre, located in Lagos has been designed to assist local communities in building skills and develop new technologies to support demand for digital infrastructure projects in banking, telecommunications, energy and government industries. In addition, it would provide entrepreneurs, business partners, and end users across Africa with access to training workshops, consulting services, a broad technical infrastructure, hands-on assistance to help bring new technologies to market and conduct a ‘proof of concept’.
Steve Cowley, IBM general manger for Central and Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa (CEMEA) who spoke at the opening ceremony noted that in support of growth opportunities, the IBM innovation centre would provide technical expertise and customised hands-on support to test and validate users’ hardware and software technologies before deployment.
He added that the centre would offer training and access to open standards-based on technologies such as Storage Area Networking, UNIX, Blade Servers, Tivoli , service management and computing designs with energy and environmental benefits.
“IBM will continue to make major investments in African markets, growing business while helping to develop local skills that advance IT innovation. With this IBM Innovation Centre, we are able to make IBM’s technical resources and expertise more accessible to fuel innovation and help local businesses compete on a global scale”, Cowley added. 
In the same vein, Sola Olojede, regional manager, Tri-Continental Limited revealed that a similar innovation centre has also been established in Kenya , East Africa , adding that the centres are geared towards increasing and consolidating IBM’s market share on the continent.
He stated: “with this innovation centre, prospective and existing customers can come in, see what we have and do easy integration from any other technology platform be it either from HP or Sun to IBM easily. Most times people travel out of Nigeria to do this.
We are mindful of travel expenses, cost of migration, and cost of logistics especially in this present economic climate. You can also do your POC (Proof of Concept) here without stress at very low costs. We do this basically because by the time you do it here and it is seamless you would definitely want to buy the product.”