IBM and Google topped the International Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce's (IGLCC) list of international gay-friendly corporations.

The group's second annual International Business Equality Index 2010 found IBM offered LGBT employees the best work environment.

“On behalf of IBMers worldwide and our LGBT communities, IBM is extremely proud to receive this recognition,” Frank Kern, senior vice president of Global Business Services, said in a statement. “IBM's heritage on diversity spans nearly 100 years, and we're as committed today as at any point in our history to continuously evolving our innovative global workplace policies and practices.”

In its debut on the list, Google landed an impressive second place finish. More impressive, however, is Google's position when results are filtered by region. Both in Europe and the Americas, the Mountain View, California-based search giant with 20,621 employees scored highest.

Also new this year is Morgan Stanley, which came in fourth place. While last year's first place finisher England-based BT Group slipped to third.

Rounding out the top 10 companies are Cisco Systems, Continental Airlines, Merck, UBS AG, the Dow Chemical Company and TD Bank Financial Group.

The report was limited to corporations with offices in at least 3 countries and a minimum of ten thousand employees. Participating companies increased from 15 last year to 25 in 2010.

Corporations were invited to complete an online survey which covered three main areas: internal policies, policies of suppliers and community involvement.

Authors of the survey called the results “encouraging.”

“Twenty-two out of the twenty-five largest participants in this year's study had Diversity and Inclusion programs in all of the countries in which they operate, and even more impressive is that the same number included LGBT issues in their global diversity program,” David Pollard, chair of the International Business Equality Index Committee, said.

“This is very exciting and demonstrates how business can contribute to the community globally,” he added.