The Open Group has extended its global reach to include its first office in South America. The Open Group’s new office in Sao Paulo, Brazil and presence in the region will allow IT professionals throughout South America to more easily participate in the consortium’s development of vendor-neutral IT open standards and certification programs.

The Open Group’s new South American office and member network increase the organization’s footprint worldwide, with other local offices located in China, France, Japan, South Africa, Sweden, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates.

Brazil has experienced some of the world’s largest growth over the past decade, tripling its economy to become the seventh largest in the world.

Gartner projects Brazil’s IT end-user spending to reach $128 billion USD in 2013;(1) and IDC predicts that Cloud Computing adoption in Brazil will grow by 60 percent between 2011 and 2013, with 80 percent of the country’s IT funds invested in implementing Cloud environments by 2015.(2)

Commenting on the acquisition, Allen Brown, president and CEO for The Open Group said, “The establishment of The Open Group office in Brazil is indicative of the tremendous global demand among emerging nations for internationally accepted IT standards and certification programs that advance strategic business objectives and interoperability”.

“The Open Group hopes easy access to the development of open standards, as well as an opportunity to actively shape them, will be invaluable to enterprises and IT professionals throughout the region,” said Brown.

Brazil Country Manager Isabela Abreu will be tasked with growing membership throughout the region, encouraging engagement within The Open Group’s Forums and Work Groups, and raising awareness of certification programs, open standards, frameworks and disciplines such as enterprise architecture and information security.

She will also be working to demonstrate to government officials and local IT executives the importance of establishing a strong IT infrastructure as Brazil’s economy and international influence grows.

Separately commenting, Abreu said, “Brazil’s development is being driven not only by its burgeoning economy, but also by upcoming large-scale global events such as the FIFA World Cup and the Olympics that will be hosted by Brazil in 2014 and 2016, respectively.”

“With events such as these, large scale IT systems will need to be built, and The Open Group’s guidance will ensure that IT standards and enterprise architectures will facilitate how Brazilian companies build their global IT infrastructures,” she said.