Eastern Eye
Thailand's dream of becoming a dominant player in the regional software development sector received a huge shot in the arm last week when the Ministry of Science, Technology and the Environment (MOSTE), announced it would be seeking some six billion baht in international loans to help establish the country's first Software Park.
Plans for a local software industry have been in the pipeline for a long time, but four governments in five years have seen the programmes sidelined while politicians bicker over who gets to handle multimillion dollar projects.
The present government, a coalition of seven parties, had originally stated that, due to budgetary constraints brought about by the Thai baht's devaluation in July last year, it would only be able to invest 400 million baht in the project. However, after lengthy meetings with officials from the National Electronics Computer and Technology Centre (NECTEC), the National Information Technology Committee (NITC) and the Association of Thai Industries (ATCI), the government relented and agreed to seek the much improved loan of six billion baht. Deputy Minister of MOSTE, Pornthep Thechapaibool, will take care of the project to seek international loans but he refused to give any specific information regarding possible supporters.
Thailand has suffered several technology setbacks of late as the country sees Malaysia continue to push ahead with its Multimedia Super Corridor project, despite internal political conflicts. The island state of Singapore is also going live with the 'Singapore One' vision. Both countries have managed to attract some important international players into their respective projects, but Thailand, which is still trying to get many projects off the ground, has failed to get any definite agreements despite the fact that officials from NECTEC met with Microsoft chairman Bill Gates and Intel's chief executive, Craig Barrett, earlier this year.
Although a large percentage of the country's population earns a living in the agricultural sector, Bangkok and its surrounding provinces are home to more than 400 software development companies. These firms have, in the past, worked independently of each other and very rarely shared information or techniques. It is thought that by bringing them all under one roof they will benefit by having a better infrastructure and access to other ideas.
Commenting on the new Software Park, Manoo Ordeedolachest, chairman of ATCI, said: 'For the past four or five years, we have been concentrating too much on the international markets where the competition is very fierce. But studies point to establishing a home market first. This is what we intend to do.'
On the bright side, Thailand is home to some of the best craftsmen and creative individual minds in the world, but on the darker side, the country is infamous for producing fake or copied products.
With the powers that be finally agreeing on a path to take, all they need do now is change the copycat manner of thinking to that of a creative one, putting to work the massive human resource.
Millennium bug is ancient history
The year 2000 has been in the news for many, many years, but for several Buddhist countries in South East Asia, the problem seemed to be someone else's not theirs, as their calendars read the present year as being 2541. Now, several leading international companies are putting their products into the market to solve the millennium problem.
Dustin Goh, country manager of Computer Associates, said at the company's CA Discovery 2000 launch, that Thailand's corporates had reached a critical stage in year 2000 awareness and that time was running out for a fix: 'We don't have that much time remaining. We need to take our Thai clients to the next stage - that of validation and testing.'
CA used Barnes & Noble as a prime example of fixing errant code in a hurry. Goh said the company's application had corrected some 1.2 million lines of code in less than two weeks. Interestingly, Thailand is planning to spend up to four billion baht to solve year 2000 issues in state-owned enterprises and other government agencies.
'There's a great amount of money being spent around the globe to fix this problem,' said Nancy Newfield, product manager at CA for Discovery 2000. 'However, we don't have much choice - we have to fix this problem. We believe that an automated approach is the best way to tackle any remaining issues.'
US lawyers are already bracing themselves for an onslaught of litigation proceeding against companies - or indeed countries - that fail to fix their computer systems which are liable to fail when the calendar clicks over to the next millennium. Many of Thailand's smaller companies have been taking a wait and see attitude, but this, according to Newfield, is tantamount to playing with fire.
Another company offering to solve the problem by way of having an audit service is Commercial Software Services Limited (CSSL) Thailand. The organisation proposes that companies send in a sample of their data, which, in turn, will be sent free of charge to the US for testing. CSSL's partner in the US, Alydaar Software, is offering to provide audited services for companies that have already addressed the 'find and fix' part of the process but need independent verification of the repair. Banks, finance companies and insurance agencies are expected to be some of the first to use the service.
Peter Hutton, general manager of CSSL, said the system is intended mainly for customers on the IBM AS/400 platform but that Alydaar could, with its SmartCode package, adapt it to run on personal computers. Having an audit carried out on an corporation's entire computer system is one way to overcome the strict regulations now being imposed by the authorities.
'Most organisations with a heterogeneous network have to supply guarantees that their systems will work as expected.
For example, banks have to convince the Bank of Thailand (BoT) that they are in control of year 2000 problems. Also companies listed on the Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET) have to give assurances to the exchange that they will still be able to function after 1 January 2000,' said Hutton.
The SET has threatened to pull the rug from under the feet of those companies that fail to protect themselves from the millennium bug. Several IT organisations made it onto the list, but all are expected to resolve any remaining issues well before the turn of the century.
The SET, which has just moved into a state of the art building, has overcome all internal year 2000 problems and is now 100 per cent compliant.
Platinum goes for gold
Platinum Software (Asia) - unrelated to Platinum Technology - has continued to build its presence in Asia. After opening its first office in Singapore and a representative office in Thailand last year, the company has reported an 88 per cent increase in revenues, 190 new customers, three new offices in Hong Kong, Shanghai and Taiwan and the appointment of several partners.
Platinum Software provides high-performance client/server financial, accounting and business applications for the Windows operating system platform and specialises in Microsoft SQL Server and Dos-based packages.
According to Paul Han, regional manager of Platinum, the company intends to invest a further $1 million in the region next year: 'We are now in a perfect position to grow our business in the region even further next year having undertaken several strategic initiative. This will ensure that we have another year of growth in the region.'
Sirisak Tirawattanangkul, managing director of Business Applications, a local Platinum partner, added: 'Last year we grew our revenue by more than one million baht. This has been a 50/50 split between SQL and Dos applications for our 250 customers.
But we are going to have to work harder because SAP and Oracle, who are the 400lbs gorillas of the software market, are beginning to move into our SME strongholds.'
Circuit training
And finally, Thailand's leading technology centre, NECTEC, is about to embark on an exciting semiconductor development programme. It recently signed an agreement with Cadence Design Systems to implement an integrated circuits (ICs) fabrication process at the centre's labs and set up a comprehensive training and support centre.
Cadence, which already supplies cutting-edge software to a number of universities in Thailand, will be assisting the country in reducing its dependence on the international IC market. Thailand is a huge consumer of ICs for the telecoms sector and hopes to establish itself in a market, which has an overall value of $1.2 trillion.
Philip Hall is editor of Bangkok's Thai Computerworld.