The company took over a development facility on the Gold Coast in 1999 when it acquired Dascom, an IT security software developer. Since then the development team has grown from 16 engineers to 70. The lab is on track to grow to 100 dedicated security researchers within the next 12 months.
The lab's security and privacy architect, Paul Ashley, attributes the growth to the high concentration of security research at Queensland universities. "I don't know if other people are getting it wrong, but Queensland is getting it right," he said. "South East Queensland has a research concentration in security."
After completing a PhD in "authentication and authorisation" at the Queensland University of Technology's (QUT) Information Security Research Centre (ISRC) Ashley joined IBM. He worked for three years in the U.S. before returning to Australia to work at the growing Gold Coast lab. He dismisses any suggestion the lab is thriving due to cost considerations. "The thing that really keeps it on the Gold Coast is the skill base and not the cost," he said.
IBM isn't the only large company to set up shop in Queensland. RSA Security originally established a research and development lab in Queensland in order to bypass tight U.S. export controls on encryption technologies. While the export rules have been relaxed, the lab has continued to grow. Eracom -- a company that provides hardware encryption products widely used in banking environments -- was founded in Queensland in 1979. Today it still conducts its research and development solely in Queensland, with 60 developers working in its local development facility. Eracom now has nine offices around the world.
While large companies have capitalised on local talent in Queensland, the IT security focus is visible at all levels of the state's ICT industry. The Queensland government's Department of Innovation and Information Economy, Sport and Recreation has established the Information Industries Bureau (IIB), which is charged with "assisting small to medium sized communication and information companies to develop their export potential and compete in global markets". The IIB has provided AU$50,000 in funding to the recently established eSecurity Australia cluster.
General manager of University of Queensland based security coordination centre AusCERT, Graham Ingram, told ZDNet Australia the growth shows no signs of abating. He believes the region will continue to attract strong investments from large companies.
"Part of me tells me it's the weather," he joked. "We're close to getting a critical mass here in terms of the types of skills and companies here."
Ingram argues pure research and development doesn't need to be located in a major economic centre -- the global nature of technology makes it easy to develop products in Queensland for sale in global markets. "The good thing about IT is that it doesn't have to be located in Sydney or Melbourne, a lot of it can be done up here in Brisbane," he said. "I think it's going to continue to grow. As we do more R&D up here it'll grow even further."
Patrick Gray travelled to IBM's Gold Coast lab as a guest of IBM.
