IBM farewells former Australian HQ at Cumberland Forest

IBM has left its office at Cumberland Forest in Sydney’s west.

As the company’s brief local history (pdf) states, Big Blue opened its then-Australian headquarters on the West Pennant Hills site in 1983 when the company’s local presence was led by Brian Finn.

The facility included offices and a data centre that was in use until recently.

The site has long been slated for redevelopment as a residential suburb and IBM was not opposed to that, having long-since decided that it wanted its people to be closer to Sydney’s CBD.

The end came late last week and the site was seen off with a party.

Staffer Sharon Tunley penned an appreciation of the site’s end.

“Back in the 1980s IBM Cumberland Forest location was born. The building design won several architecture awards. The office environment idyllic. The buildings surrounded by an extensive tree canopy including Blue Gum High Forest that is now 25 to 30 years old. IBM worked with the National Trust to establish a bush regeneration plan and 40,000 native plants were planted.”

She continued: “The State Forest and surrounding bush attracted cockatoos, rainbow lorikeets, owls, snakes, lizards, bush turkeys, magpies, ravens, the occasional koala, and I’m sure much more that we did not see.”

Saying Goodbye to Cumberland Forest https://t.co/I7YcPWxQ8O pic.twitter.com/SixGBKXNf1

— Sharon Tunley (@SharonTunley) August 30, 2019

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Another IBMer, Shiva Reddy, took to LinkedIn where he commented that the atmosphere in the office had sometimes becomes low-key it earned the name “Slumberland Forest”.

Reddy’s post is a little bleak: it shows empty offices and IBMers putting on brave faces.

It also generated a comment from David La Rose, general manager of IBM Australia’s partner ecosystem, who wrote “It was a special place that will go down in IBM history but as I always say IBM is experienced through the IBMer and that lives on...”

IBM recently opened a new office at 259 George Street in Sydney's CBD, and is also re-furbishing its offices a few doors up from CRN in the Sydney suburb of St Leonards.