IBM opens Asean telecom center

MANILA, Philippines - IBM announced recently the opening of the ASEAN Telecom Center of Excellence (CoE) to accelerate telecommunication solution development and streamline product delivery to help ASEAN telecommunication service providers compete more effectively in the fast-changing market.

The center will bring together cutting-edge technical skills, specialized offerings and industry best practices to meet the rising challenges in ASEAN’s telecom industry.

Located in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, the ASEAN Telecom CoE leverages IBM’s globally integrated network of capabilities and partnerships.

The center offers a range of new telecom software solutions based on IBM’s Service Provider Delivery Environment (SPDE) 3.0 framework, as well as hardware, services and business partner applications.

Clients will include telecom operators, network equipment suppliers, independent software vendors, and extended service providers.

“To sustain growth in this competitive industry landscape, service providers must offer customers a more positive and differentiated user experience while reducing complexity and cost,” said Rey Lugtu, country manager for telecom and utilities industry of IBM Philippines.

“The CoE offers the ASEAN telco industry an unparalleled level of expertise and support to speed implementation and facilitate effective use of applications and technologies. This is very beneficial to the Philippines, wherein the telecommunications industry remains one of the more exciting and rapidly growing sectors in the country,” Lugtu added.

The CoE is staffed by technical and telecom experts with experience in deploying service creation, service delivery, and business and operation support systems.

According to research firm IDC, the combined telecom services market of Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand, would reach $35.7 billion in 2009.

Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand were expected to show modest growth of four to six percent.

Vietnam and Indonesia, each with double-digit expansion rates, would demonstrate higher growth as they are at the early stages of the technology adoption curve and currently addressing the digital divide in their markets.