<p>International Business MachinesCorp. (IBM), which makes most of its money from high-end technologycontracts, is betting that some of its growth will come fromcustomers who don't pay anything -- yet.</p><p>The company has developed an application to track the watersystem in Tshwane, South Africa, where more than half thepopulation lives in slums that often aren't connected toplumbing. IBM is letting the community use the app for free,after it sent a team of executives to evaluate the system aspart of a corporate service project in October.</p><p>The benefit to IBM is it can use the city as a testingground for the application, while gaining favor with the localgovernment. It also may catch the attention of other cities withsimilar problems. Relationships are key to building thecompany's business in Africa, where it now has offices in morethan 20 countries, compared with just four in 2006.</p><p>"We're not just walking in and saying, 'Throw us ourmoney,'" said Perry Hartswick, an architect of IBM's SmarterPlanet program, which tries to fix civic problems with trackingtechnology. "We're walking in to say we're here to be a part ofAfrica. That's a very important part of the way we approach anynew geography."</p><p><a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-03-21/ibm-works-for-free-to-build-relationships-with-african-cities.html">Keep reading...</a></p>