Increasing Software R&D Capacity at the Centre of HP Worldwide Initiative

GALWAY, 13 DECEMBER 2010 – HP today announced that it is adding 105 new highly skilled jobs within the Global IT organization in Galway that supports the company’s Enterprise Business (EB) unit. This investment is supported by IDA Ireland.

The jobs—all to be located in HP’s campus at Ballybrit—are technical in nature, focused on enterprise data architecture, application development, and the latest in software engineering and testing, among other skill sets.

“This is an important part of helping develop HP’s capability in software engineering, and we see it as an important statement of both our capacity to do more and the relevance of the skills that have been developed by the existing team here in Galway,” said Gerry Jacob, vice president within HP’s EB IT organization.

Martin Murphy, Managing Director HP Ireland said, “we are thrilled to be able to secure these jobs for Ireland as they speak hugely to the esteem in which the Irish skill set and capability is regarded within the HP community.

“HP’s strategic intent is to continue the shift towards research and development, including working with institutions such as LERO, the Irish Software Engineering Research Centre at Limerick University,” Mr. Murphy added. “We have a proud tradition of delivery in this regard across hardware, software and services in Ireland.”

The Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Innovation, Batt O’Keeffe TD, described the HP jobs as significant boost for research and development in Ireland.

‘HP has chosen Galway for these highly strategic and knowledge-based roles in a move that reinforces our global reputation for high-end research and development activity. The investment shows that we can compete for highly skilled jobs in the information technology sector as we forge ahead with efforts to make Ireland Europe’s innovation hub,’ said Minister O’Keeffe.

You can apply for IT HP Jobs in Galway.

The jobs will be announced with the establishment of a global services desk.

The firm already employs around 4,000 people in Ireland at its bases in Dublin, Leixlip, Galway and Belfast. Managing Director of Hewlett Packard Ireland Martin Murphy said the company has plans for further growth over the coming years.

The multi-lingual technical support centre will employ a range of people, including high-end graduates, and an element of the operation will also involve research and development.

300 jobs are to be brought on line immediately.

The new support service will deal with HP customers in 16 European languages.

Hewlett Packard has confirmed that it and its newly acquired subsidiary EDS are to shed 133 jobs in Ireland over the next two years.

Hewlett Packard currently employs 4,000 people at its facility in Leixlip in Co Kildare and EDS employs 400 in Treasury buildings in Dublin city centre.

Hewlett-Packard announced plans to cut more than 24,000 jobs worldwide, about 7.5 percent of its global workforce. HP and newly acquired EDS have a combined total of around 320,000 employees.

The good news for Ireland is that a half the job cuts will be in the US.

Here in Ireland HP employs more than 4,000 staff in its main operation is a manufacturing plant at Leixlip in Kildare, where cartridges for inkjet printers are made and in the software and localisation centre in Galway. It seems unclear if Irish jobs would be lost as a result of the cuts at this stage.