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 Irish Examiner reports that 300 jobs are due to be created in Cork and Galway by two multinational firms. Cork city will get 200 jobs in the new year when a NASDAQ-quoted cloud computing software company sets up a major European hub in the city. The IDA and the company have yet to make an official announcement but it is understood that official word will come in early 2011. Meanwhile, the IDA is expected to announce over 100 jobs in HP in Galway today. The new highly skilled jobs will be in software engineering, testing and application development.

The Irish Independent reports that Hewlett-Packard is to create 50 jobs at its base in Co Kildare. HP said it was creating positions for “highly-skilled, multi-lingual graduates” to work as support for Microsoft software programs. HP Ireland’s managing director Martin Murphy said the company could add a further 70 people at a later date depending on the success of the new hires.

HP is to create 50 new jobs in Co Galway as part of a new €11million expansion project in the region while online retailer Buy.com is to take on 40 employees.

HP announced this morning that it is to establish two new IDA-supported highly strategic research and development and projects at its Ballybrit facility.

One of the projects will involve the establishment of a centre of expertise for cloud computing services, while the second one is focused on setting up a research and development (R&D) group focused on process innovation.

Announcing the expansion this morning, Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment Mary Coughlan said the decision to establish the projects in Co Galway were a ‘vote of confidence in facility’s capabilities.”

HP is one of the largest multinational companies in Ireland, with over 4,000 people employed across its core business groups in Leixlip, Dublin, Galway and Belfast.

In a separate announcement, online retailer Buy.com said it is to establish a European Operations Centre in Galway city centre, leading to the creation of 40 highly skilled positions over four years.

Recruitment is to commence immediately for positions in multilingual customer support, online sales and marketing, finance and software design and development.

The new facility will be located at Mayoralty House, Flood Street, in the centre of the city.

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.