The IT and telecommunications industry is a strong and important sector in the south-west in terms of economy and technology, alongside the automotive sector and mechanical engineering.

Around 13,000 IT and telecommunications companies achieve a total turnover of over 41 billion Euros in Baden- Württemberg, thereby generating over a quarter of the sector‟s turnover in Germany. The 165,000 employees in this sector in Baden-Württemberg account for around one quarter of all employees in the sector in Germany.

Within the IT/telecoms sector, specialists in the “data processing and databases” sector and representatives of “broadcast and news technology” predominate in Baden-Württemberg.

Market world leaders in computer hardware such as Hewlett- Packard have their German head offices in Baden-Württemberg. The largest IBM development centre outside the USA, IBM Deutschland Research & Development GmbH, also maintains a site in the state. Leading international companies in their sector such as Agilent and Micronas in the semiconductors industry and Alcatel-Lucent in the area of telecommunications technology, amongst others, are represented in the state and underline the leading technological IT competency of the south- west.

In addition to the Baden-Württemberg company SAP AG, Europe‟s largest developer and provider of business software and services, and the fourth largest in the world, the state has a multitude of extremely successful small and medium- sized businesses which operate worldwide in the fields of software and IT services.