IBM  today announced new investments for its Ireland Development Lab to produce intelligent software, which help lower cost of operations; generate intelligence for quick growth; and build closer business relationships with customers, partners and colleagues. New jobs will be created for high value software engineering work at the lab, which addresses real-world issues such as environment protection projects and maritime affairs.

IBM will have up to 100 new roles in Dublin, Cork and Galway -- including new opportunities for technology graduates -- in an Industrial Development Agency (IDA) Ireland supported investment of up to euro 25 million over the next three years. These software engineers will focus on designing enterprise cloud computing software, as well as Service Management and database software with business analytic capabilities.

"Today's announcement highlights Ireland as an important place to help fulfill our global research, development and business strategy," said Michael Daly, General Manager, IBM Ireland. "The software will be standardized and customized by customer demands."

Welcoming today's announcement, Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan T.D. said, "This is wonderful news coming from the largest information technology company in the world. This knowledge-driven investment is highly significant for Ireland. The benefits are tremendous in terms of the highly sophisticated software technology that will be developed, the highly skilled positions that will be created and the endorsement by a world industry leader that Ireland is helping to fulfill IBM's global research, development and business strategy."

"The Ireland Lab is one of more than 80 IBM research and development laboratories around the world, providing intelligent software that serve business purposes in many industries such as healthcare, energy, telecommunications, transportation, retail and public services," said Dennis King, Vice President for Advanced Collaboration Development at IBM. "We are committed to extending our collaboration and database technologies to meet the growing need in the market."

Today, enterprise computing software is commonly used as a service. Earlier in the year, IBM and the Marine Institute Ireland announced a SmartBay program using an ensemble of cloud computing software to monitor wave conditions, marine life and pollution levels in Galway Bay. It turns mountains of data into intelligence and helps with fishermen activities and future development of the bay.

IBM will expand the lab in three main areas including information development, database and cloud computing software:

• establishing a new software development team in Dublin to work on the creation and testing of the next generation of IBM's DB2 database software, which is used to gather and analyze information about their business and subsequently make informed business decisions. This new team builds on the existing capabilities in the Ireland Lab in DB2 Database development, and will deliver industry specific data warehouse architectures for banking, insurance, telecommunications, retail and healthcare.
• creating a new cloud computing software development team to work on IBM LotusLive offerings, which is a suite of cloud-delivered online technologies for business. LotusLive provides essential collaboration services to simplify and improve daily business interactions with customers, partners and colleagues. Designed with security in mind, LotusLive Connections and LotusLive Engage provide social networking capabilities such as Web conferencing, file storing and sharing, content management, live chat, and business forms.
• creating a Centre of Excellence for Information Development to support a number of software products across IBM Tivoli software which delivers solutions to multiple industries such as telecommunications, banking, pharmaceuticals and aerospace.