[AFLUG] lost opportunities for developing IT sectors ?
guido@sohne.net
guido@sohne.net
Thu, 13 Mar 2003 14:50:56 -0500 (EST)
> That would be an interesting study providing you can include the lost
> opportunities for the local ICT sector due to the fact that nobody can
> afford the software they are reselling and the fact that indeed you are
> not actually building much of an IT sector in the first place.
I would not agree that nobody can afford the software being sold because
that would be tantamount to a statement that there is no local market for
software. On the contrary, ranging from large companies and multinationals
to small business, there is use of IT for business purposes that results
in the purchase of systems and solutions. Not all the software is affordable
to the range considered, so things like Oracle are out for small businesses.
The local IT sector in Ghana has the 'box shifters' that you are referring
to, who do nothing more than sell prepackaged, proprietary software. Many
of them have made large sums of money, primarily in the government sector
and often accompanied by an astonishing level of corruption. In such a
case, the nation loses. A lot.
You can also find more of a real IT sector with different players in the
market such as ISPs, telcos, software development houses etc. These players
tend to use a mixture of proprietary and free software as needed.
Competition for business happens between the 'real IT' sector and the
'box shifters' and this has led to some interesting observations from
the local software industry.
It appears that corruption in government is the major factor stifling the
development of local IT sectors. Government contracts are often very large
and the resulting sums of money usually lead to solutions being imported
just for particular implementations for very high sums.
If such money had been spent by government on the local IT sector, there
would have been an expansion in capacity and higher incomes for tech
workers as well as a residual progress being made from the accumulation of
business logic and additional features and capabilities of the software.
One could safely say, in Ghana, that the local software industry has grown
in spite of the lack of interest in local solutions by governments. Clients
range from multinationals like Unilever and Nestle to banks like SSB Bank
(one of the largest banks in Ghana). Exports of software are made to other
countries in the sub region as well. So this is by no means a non existent
sector. On the other hand, the lack of government patronage reduces the
size of the market and of the sector immensely, when compared to total IT
related expenditure.
Free software is generally not being looked at by the local commercial
IT software development sector except as something of curiosity, so one
can say that the proprietary mindset is still prevalent.
The reason for this is the resistance or more accurately, inertia
of the consumer market in adopting free software such as Linux as a
platform for end users. The target market is still very much Windows
except for a niche in the server space (especially when combined with
internet and network applications). Some developers concerned about cross
platform implications for development use Java but generally, as far as
numbers are concerned, developers tend not to bother about portability to
alternate platforms.
Having said that, there is a lot of developer interest in Linux with a
great number of people wanting to learn and adopt Linux as a platform for
use and experimentation. There are a couple or Linux User Groups that
seek to expand developer interest and encourage the deepening of Linux
expertise in Ghana. Free software such as Apache, PHP and MySQL
is in widespread use amongst web developers.
The attitudes of individual business proprietors when it comes to the
issue of software, to paraphrase one cybercafe owner I know, is that
software is free anyhow - whether it is proprietary or GNU. They primarily
care about cost and have little thought or interest in software freedom
in the sense that copyright is respected while achieving the cost savings.
Thus it is likely only with the introduction of legislation to
crimininalize and penalize copying of commercial software that business
owners will begin to in general care about the legal as opposed to financial
status of their IT infrastructure. Ironically, such introduction of
legislation will almost certainly lead to the primary means of revenue
generation for some 'box shifters' to derive from challenges of
organizations and businesses that they can see to be infringing on their
copyright.
In other words, the bulk of money for the proprietary software industry
representatives will be generated from legal battles instead of retail
sales. Local software houses have various antipiracy schemes already in
place and are much less likely to benefit from the introduction of such
legislation.
It makes for a dilemma; should one prop up the 'box shifters' to promote
free software via collateral effect from increased legal concerns over
intellectual property rights or should one prop up the local business
sector by holding back on intellectual property rights so that they
can 'purchase' proprietary software for free ?
> Can anyone point me to thriving local IT sectors in Africa (outside
> isolated cases in SA) after decades of reselling foreign proprietary
> software?
Here are some software companies:
http://www.softghana.com
http://www.rancardsolutions.com
http://www.persol.com
BusyInternet is home to a number of business (about 10?) in the tech
sector ...
http://www.busyinternet.com
And web designers and developers are a dime a dozen. So I would say that
there is a local IT sector that it relatively vibrant and active if only
a little small compared to most foreign IT sectors. And as I tried to
point out, making the sector grow is probably achieved most rapidly with
government intervention (simply by preferentially buying local software).
> Yes the Microsoft model is lucrative but who is paying?
The state now. The business and individual later.
I've taken the liberty of copying this mail to pubsoft@isoc.org in hope
that it will generate some debate and interest.
> Kind regards
>
> - bas
>
> ___________ ___________
> i m f u n d o
>
> Bas Kotterink
> ICT Adviser
> Imfundo - Partnership for IT in Education
>
> DFID
> 1 Palace Street
> London SW1E 5HE
> Tel: +44 (0)20 7023 0980
> Fax: +44 (0)20 7023 0976
> bas@imfundo.org / b-kotterink@dfid.gov.uk
> www.imfundo.org
>
>
>>>> philipp schmidt <philipp@bridges.org> 03/13/03 03:23pm >>>
> Bud makes an extremely important point here that is too often
> overlooked. The profit margins in re-selling proprietary software by
> far exceed those of selling services/support/training even more so if
> you are the producer obviously (Sun Solaris on servers). Yes there are
> ways to make money with open source consulting, but it is harder and
> pays less. Even if some of the licensing money ultimately goes to
> international companies, local companies/economies profit as well. I
> would be very interested to see a study that analizes the impact of
> open source on the local IT industry - in economic terms! Would anyone
> have a pointer?
>
> Philipp
>
>
>
>
>
> On Tue, 2003-03-11 at 11:12, Bud P. Bruegger wrote:
>> I agree with what you say but you are taking a consumer point of view
>> that works in the fields where adequate software already exists
>> (operating system with network services, maybe office suites). There
>> are areas such as health care (look at www.euspirit.org to see what is
>> happening in open source health care--I'm a partner of that project)
>> where adequate solutions yet have to be created. To make this happen,
>> you definitely need a producer point of view.
>>
>> But even for consumers who want to save money, there need to be
>> counterparts who want to make money by selling the necessary support
>> services etc.
>>
>> cheers
>> --bud
>>
>>
>> On Tue, 11 Mar 2003 08:22:43 +0300
>> "Titus Syengo" <titus@pactke.org> wrote:
>>
>> > While the private sector's goal is to make money, I believe entwined
>> > in it is the goal to cut costs. Open source provides this. A simple
>> > example is in migration to Linux and use of Samba which can replace
>> > Windows 2000 Server software or any other for profit software. If
>> > any private sector institution is assured of spending less for the
>> > same value of services, I think they will shift. Today most ISPs(
>> > and these are private institutions) run more on Linux servers than
>> > Redmond products. The challenge we have in my opinion is to ensure
>> > there is local support for open source and we will see even the
>> > private sector joining us.
>> >
>> > I also agree that there has to be political will for governments to
>> > be effective partners.
>> >
>> > Titus Syengo,
>> > Pact Kenya,
>> > P.O. Box 690 - 00606, Nairobi.
>> > Tel: 254-2-571615, 254-2-578271/3/4
>> > Fax: 254-2-570775
>> >
>> > -----Original Message-----
>> > From: Fatimata SEYE SYLLA [mailto:fsylla@sentoo.sn]
>> > Sent: Monday, March 10, 2003 8:09 PM
>> > To: Bud P. Bruegger
>> > Cc: Sounkalo Dembele; a_lockhart@email.com; aflug@globalcn.tc.ca;
>> > osta@allafrica.com
>> > Subject: Re: [AFLUG] FOSSFA
>> >
>> >
>> > Hello Bud,
>> >
>> > You're raising here a very interesting and important issue :
>> > government and public organizations want to save monye whereas
>> > private industry wants to make money. How do we promote the use of
>> > open source in Africa ?
>> >
>> > The same question was raised during the information/sensitization
>> > workshop we ( Gender and ICT Network) organized in Dakar last
>> > friday on
>> >
>> > the theme : "Free software and African women". The big question
>> > is how to create the market within our countries. I do think that
>> > if our governments are convinced of the benefits and if they have
>> > the political
>> >
>> > will to use free software, they should find a way to promote local
>> > private companies to develop free software. It is a matter of
>> > political
>> >
>> > will and this is why the decision makers within our governments must
>> > be informed, sensitized and more involved in our movement from
>> > now. The government is a large market in itsefl and it is easier
>> > to convince the members (if they are willing to...) .
>> >
>> > The other alternative is to have a very strong FOSSFA with the
>> > ability to train developers in private companies, and provide
>> > them with free software applications so that these companies will
>> > be able to offer to the customers 2 solutions : one with the
>> > proprietary soft and one with free soft stressing on the
>> > advantages and unconveniencies of each solution of course this will
>> > require more work from the companies and some compensations should
>> > be found. The customer will then have a choice.
>> >
>> > I hope many more people will give their thought about this critical
>> > problem.
>> >
>> > All the best to all of you
>> >
>> > --
>> >
>> > Fatimata SEYE SYLLA
>> > Tel : (221) 822 81 05 / Fax : (221) 821 23 59
>> > email : fsylla@sentoo.sn
>> > fsylla@osiris.sn
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > _______________________________________________
>> > AFLUG mailing list
>> > AFLUG@globalcn.tc.ca http://globalcn.tc.ca/mailman/listinfo/aflug
>> >
>> >
>> >
>>
>>
>> /----------------------------------------------------------------- |
>> Bud P. Bruegger, Ph.D.
>> | Sistema (www.sistema.it)
>> | Via U. Bassi, 54
>> | 58100 Grosseto, Italy
>> | +39-0564-411682 (voice and fax)
>> \-----------------------------------------------------------------
>>
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