IBM Commits $300M to Continuity

ARMONK, N.Y. -- IBM (IBM - News) today announced it is investing US$300 million to construct 13 Business Resilience service delivery centers in 10 countries in 2008, increasing its ability to address surging demand from businesses and governments from around the world seeking to keep their operations safe from disruption. The massive infrastructure expansion is the largest of its kind and will permit IBM clients to access services that support business continuity for the first time from a cloud computing environment.

Business continuity and resiliency services help ensure uninterrupted operations across all layers of the business, as well as helping businesses avoid, prepare and recover from a disruption. IBM is the world's leader in providing services that help avoid disruption and enable business continuity.

Future Business Resilience service delivery centers will be located in every geographic region of the globe, with sites including Hong Kong; Tokyo, Japan; Paris, France; London, UK; Beijing and Shanghai, China; Izmir, Turkey; Warsaw, Poland; Milan, Italy; Metro Park, New Jersey; Cologne, Germany; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Mumbai, India; South Africa; and Brussels, Belgium. The centers are specifically designed to help clients maintain business operations under virtually any condition, comply with industry and government regulations and recover rapidly from disasters.

"Enterprise Rent-A-Car is in the business of providing exceptional customer service and that is how we differentiate ourselves," said Richard Bozada, Department Manager of Business Continuity, Enterprise Rent-A-Car. "To that extent, IBM helps us achieve our business goals by creating a highly resilient environment that is anchored by a world class IBM service delivery team. Through IBM's Business Resilience Centers we are able to address and minimize multiple points of business and event-driven risk. Today's commitment further validates the strategic approach we've taken to key aspects of our IT operations."

IBM Corp.