IBM Yamato Facility

IBM Yamato Facility houses IBM's research and development centers in Japan. Its address is 1623-14, Shimo-tsuruma, Yamato City, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. Its buildings were completed in 1985.

IBM Yamato Development Laboratory

History

In the 1960s, IBM started small-scale development activities in Japan, using RPQ procedure at its Special Engineering department. In 1972, IBM Japan Development Laboratory (JDL) was established in Tokyo. JDL was moved to the IBM Fujisawa Plant site in 1975, becoming IBM Fujisawa Development Laboratory (FDL). FDL was subsequently moved to the Yamato site In 1985, becoming IBM Yamato Development Laboratory (usually called Yamato Lab, not YDL), and the IBM Tokyo Programming Center (VM/Office System, Banking System, Retail System, etc.) at Kawasaki also moved here. In 1993, the IBM Tokyo Research Laboratory was also moved to Yamato. When IBM sold its Personal Computer Division to Lenovo in 2005, Yamato Lab's ThinkPad departments were separated, but remained at the Yamato site.

Development Lab Directors

The Development Lab Directors (or those who were in charge of Development & Manufacturing) were:

• Edward V. Hoffler (1971–1974)
• Nobuo Mii (1974–1977)
• Keiichiro Meigo
• Hajime Watabe
• Toshio Yasui (1987–1991)
• Kiyoji Ishida
• Tsutomu Maruyama
• Yukako Uchinaga (2004–2007)
• Yoshinori Sakaue (2007–2008)
• Kazushi Kuse (2009- )

Development project areas

Project areas that were at the IBM Yamato Facility according to IBM Japan include: server systems, storage systems, embedded hardware, communication systems, printers, retail store systems, application systems, telecommunication, Internet related, pervasive computing, finance industry systems, customer relationship management (CRM), business intelligence (BI), and technical and consulting services about hardware and software.