HP to expand Belfast software engineering centre

28 Mar 2011

Technology company Hewlett Packard is to expand its StorageWorks operation in Belfast with an as yet unspecified number of jobs to be created. Country manager Martin Murphy said Ireland is now at the heart of the cloud computing revolution.

HP country manager Martin Murphy told Siliconrepublic.com that the new operation will be the first of its kind in Europe and, as a centre of excellence focused on storage technology and virtualisation, will merge software engineering with cloud computing and R&D.

The StorageWorks operation is a software engineering centre that develops products based on HP’s cloud computing software platform.

“The operation will be focusing on the next generation of cloud storage which is at the epicentre of an ICT megatrend,” Murphy explained.

Ireland is at the epicentre of an ICT megatrend

“On the island of Ireland we now have significant cloud activity including our Galway operation and I believe Ireland is at the forefront of cloud development. As our CEO outlined in his strategic vision last week cloud will be a key pillar for growth for HP going forward.”

In February, HP reported shares tumbled 12pc in late trading after it cut its forecasts for the rest of the year.

HP revealed it expected revenue to increase later in 2011, due to cloud services and with the introduction of a TouchPad tablet computer based on the WebOS operating system, which was attained in last year’s US$1.2bn acquisition of Palm Inc. The company introduced new smartphones running the software on 9 February.

While Murphy did not elaborate on the number of jobs, he said that they will be aimed at a combination of MSc and PhD graduates. In the past year HP has grown employment on the island of Ireland by an extra 1,000 people. “For these roles the jobs we’ve created are IT, multilingual and R&D.

“We were able to bring in these new jobs because we were able to demonstrate that we can get people with those qualifications in Northern Ireland. In terms of skills and track record for delivering value, Belfast has these in abundance,” Murphy said.

Doireann McDermott and John Kennedy

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