If you thought IBM's South Florida presence had gone the way of the Selectric Typewriter and 5 ¼-inch floppy disks, then Rick Qualman has a message for you: We're still here.

Big Blue, which invented the first personal computer in Boca Raton and once had its Latin American base in Coral Gables, was one of the region's largest employers 25 years ago. But the company gradually faded from the local radar as executives moved manufacturing jobs out of the region and sent the Latin American headquarters to Sao Paolo, Brazil.

But Qualman, the company's senior executive in Florida, wants people to know that the company still has nearly 5,000 employees in the state, including 1,600 between Boca Raton and Miami.

The company gives many of its employees wide flexibility to live where they wish and do much of their work from home, so local employees work in a variety of departments. But the company still has offices off Congress Avenue in Boca and off the Dolphin Expressway, near Burger King's headquarters in Miami-Dade.

A key focus for the Boca site is voice-recognition software. This technology is used in applications like the navigation systems in new cars and some automated telephone customer-service systems (the ones that say things like '. . . to speak with a representative, say `representative . . .' ''). The Boca labs also continue to develop new applications, such as software that enables U.S. soldiers in Iraq to speak English into a device and have it spit out the Arabic translation from an audio speaker.

Qualman grew up in the area and attended Boca Raton High -- where his son now goes to school. The fact that a technology executive is sending his kid to a public school is significant, because the inconsistent quality of local schools is a problem for business recruiters when they try to lure high-tech jobs to the area.

Like some other tech firms, IBM is trying to help local schools by organizing internship programs, encouraging employees to volunteer and working with teachers and professors on joint projects.

The Miami Herald caught up with Qualman at the Boca office, where pictures of old PCs line the walls.

Q: Local business leaders have often said our education system is an obstacle to attracting high-tech companies like yours. What do you think?

A: I think you've got some wonderful schools here -- like Boca High. You've got some good universities also. We're doing a lot now with Florida Atlantic, FIU, the University of Miami. In general, I think education needs to be improved, not just in Florida but across the country.

Q: What can Florida do to attract more high-tech jobs?

A: Most large companies are looking for an education system that would attract employees. If we're going to have a location of 900 people in this building, they're going to want good schools for their children; they're going to want universities for research and collaboration.

Q: As emerging markets around the world have grown, they have started to develop their own high-tech firms, offering some sophisticated products and services. Is this a problem for IBM?

A: In a lot of those cases, we're involved with those companies. We are helping provide them with the infrastructure and the hardware and software they're building those applications on. We're fueling that innovation that's taking place in those countries.

We are a local company in all those countries. We have manufacturing in Brazil. We have large software development in India. We really are a global company. We have a local presence in more than 140 countries.

Q: Tell us a little about the voice-recognition program you're working on. What kinds of applications do you foresee for that technology?

A: Some of it is in the auto industry: You can talk to the car. A lot of that came out of research in the lab here in Boca. . . . In the future, imagine being able to call on your phone and talk to somebody in Paris, and he's hearing French and you're speaking English on this side. There's lots of opportunity in this space.

Q: When many people think of IBM, they imagine guys in dark suits and white shirts -- not even blue shirts allowed. But now you have telecommuting, a relaxed atmosphere and people working from home. What gives?

A: When I started, when you were an IBM sales professional, you had a dark suit and wingtip shoes, and that was the IBM mold.

I think in the '90s . . . we went through some very tough times, and we had to transform ourselves. Innovative individuals flourished in the IBM culture. When I'm working here, I wear a jacket, but I don't wear a tie. It's a gray shirt, not a white shirt. No more wingtips.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

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