As part of the agreement, IBM will provide remote and onsite help desk and IT equipment support services for PNB's hardware. This project ultimately will help achieve excellence in IT operations by creating a stable, dynamic, flexible and efficient IT environment for PNB.

Tianjin Economic Technological Development Area (TEDA) Administrative Commission, China, awarded an e-Learning contract to IBM in August. This three-year project will see IBM training 3,000 selected graduates from six universities in Tianjin City to become IT service professionals for mainframe and Java-based systems.

Such training will enable the TEDA ePark to tap into a pool of talent to provide outsourcing services in areas such as software development, financial back office services, financial outsourcing, administration and human resources. Using the Saba e-Learning Management System, virtual classroom training will be provided via the Internet.

In September, Vietnam Technology and Telecommunications Joint Stock Company (VNTT) signed a contract with IBM to build a cloud computing environment using IBM software, services and hardware. IBM will build a cloud computing center using IBM System x, BladeCenter and System Storage managed by IBM Blue Cloud technologies.

In addition to data center services, VNTT will provide its customers with cloud-based collaboration services such as email on Lotus Domino, intranet service on WebSphere Portal Express and company server on Lotus Foundations, managed by Tivoli software.

VNTT's clients will be able to take advantage of a more flexible, cost effective infrastructure, but still access computing resources and services at any time -- just as they use other shared services.

In the third quarter of 2008, IBM's revenue was up six percent year over year in Asia Pacific as a whole and up thirteen percent in growth markets.