IBM stockholders meets in Tulsa, donates computers to Cherokee Nation

Monday, April 24th 2006, 6:15 am

By: News On 6

TULSA, Okla. (AP) -- A few hundred IBM stockholders are expected to gather in Tulsa on Tuesday when the world's largest vendor of computer products and services holds its annual meeting.

Only 2,571 shareholders of record in Armonk, New York-based International Business Machines actually live in Oklahoma.

But a company spokesman says rapid growth in a local center that handles outsourced accounting and finance work makes Tulsa a good location for the meeting.

In the past three years, the Tulsa operation has grown from about 100 employees to 1,200. Another 130 employees work in Oklahoma City.

Ahead of the meeting, IBM delivered 10 computer centers loaded with early learning software to the Cherokee Nation for use in the tribe's Head Start centers.