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Australia’s Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs (DIMA) has signed a contract with IBM for a major business transformation program.

The Systems for People program was announced in this year’s Budget, following independent reviews into DIMA’s business information needs and record management practices.

IBM was announced as the preferred partner for the program in June 2006 and contract negotiations have been underway since.

“The signing of this contract heralds the development of major improvements in client service, decision-making processes and departmental performance,” a DIMA departmental spokesman said.

“The three year contract will be worth more than AUD$200 million and is performance-based, including incentives linked to ongoing and future work opportunities,” the spokesman added.

Ian Ball, Managing Partner of IBM Global Business Services, said he looked forward to working closely with DIMA as it transforms its business operations and system processes.

“IBM is delighted to partner with DIMA in its mission to deliver high-quality services to its clients,” Mr. Ball said. “Our consulting and technology teams will work side-by-side with the department to transform the way in which Australia manages its immigration processes.”

IBM and its subcontractors will provide business transformation, systems integration and application development expertise, as well as hardware and software technologies.

IBM has already started working with the department, with more than 150 staff working alongside departmental staff in multi-disciplinary teams to develop and deliver the first major systems upgrade, due to occur in April next year.

IBM today announced that a dozen key India-based solution providers will incorporate IBM’s self-managing autonomic technology into their software and solutions. By working with IBM, these companies can deliver software that can radically automate and simplify IT management and underlying systems, while reducing costs for their customers.

The India-based solution providers will build IBM self-managing technology into their offerings over the next six months as part of IBM’s global Autonomic Computing Business Partner initiative. As the first Indian solution providers to adopt IBM’s autonomic technology, this signals a new era of computing in India, where other technology firms are turning to IBM to help develop systems with built-in intelligence to reduce IT complexity for customers. IBM estimates that autonomic technologies can reduce IT administration costs by up to 40 percent and increase IT utilization by up to 25 percent.

“Autonomic computing has risen to the top of the IT agenda for businesses in India,” said Mr. R. Dhamodaran, vice president for ISV and Developer Relations, IBM India. “IBM is helping solution providers quickly adopt self-managing autonomic technology, which is critical for customers trying to cut costs and remain competitive. In turn, as solution providers build IBM’s autonomic technology into their offerings they spur customer demand for products based on IBM middleware.”

The partners will use the IBM Autonomic Computing Toolkit, which provides software, technology components, tools, scenarios, documentation and other resources to quickly add autonomic features to their offerings. IBM’s software development lab in Bangalore has played an instrumental role in IBM’s autonomic computing initiative and created technology for the toolkit, which will help customers improve system availability and simplify software maintenance and administration.

According to IT analyst firm IDC, India is the fastest growing IT market in the Asia Pacific region, with the domestic IT market estimated to grow 19 percent in 2006.* As an emerging technology market, businesses in India are relying on more complex devices and infrastructures to conduct business — which translates to costly management burdens.

This announcement is the latest step in IBM’s five-year autonomic computing initiative, which has worked to automate processes and build intelligence into systems. IBM has built the broadest portfolio of autonomic-enabled products, services and solutions in the industry, with more than 500 self-managing autonomic features in 75 distinct IBM products.

IBM has already teamed with more than 70 business partners around the world through its Autonomic Computing Business Partner initiative. As part of IBM’s commitment to help its partners succeed, the company provides technical support and marketing resources to help them expand their businesses and reach global markets.