Software industry for Indonesia: What needs to be done

Software industry for Indonesia: What needs to be done
(1x35)

Zatni Arbi
Columnist
Jakarta
zatni@cbn.net.id

"Have you heard of the bumblebee story?" Andrew McBean,
president director of PT Microsoft Indonesia, asked me over lunch
last week. No, I had not.

"Aerodynamically, bumblebees do not have the right shape to
enable them to fly. But, since nobody tells the bumblebees that
they cannot fly, they fly," Andrew said. What does it have to do
with Indonesia? "Nobody tells the people of this country that
they cannot build the next Silicon Valley, so they can be the
next Silicon Valley."

Andrew was very excited. He had heard one of Indonesia's top
officials mention that the software industry was one of the
engines that would help propel the country faster into the
recovery stage. As he was working for one of the largest software
companies in the world, his enthusiasm was completely to be
expected, of course.

Yet, a push in the software industry makes perfect sense.
First, as opposed to the highly capital-intensive hardware
industry, the software industry requires much, much less
investment. Besides, it can be spread among university labs, for
example. There have been initiatives in Bandung, Bali and other
places in Indonesia to grow centers for software development.

This country has an abundance of talent, and it has always my
belief we Indonesians are just as good as anybody else in the
world when it comes to application software development.

And the world is a global place, so it does not matter where
the software developers work as they can sell their products to
the global market.

Of course, a couple of things have to be there before
Indonesia can really turn its embryonic software industry into a
more significant money-making sector.

"First, intellectual property needs to be protected. Second,
education must be improved, third entrepreneurial endeavors need
to get more support from the government," suggested Andrew. I
agree with him.

IPR

Skeptics may say it is just natural for Andrew to call for
more serious enforcement and protection for the intellectual
property rights (IPR), as it is the foundation of his company's
business. However, despite the growing challenges that IPR
proponents are facing due to advances in copying and pirating
technologies, nobody can say that there will still be incentive
left to create when their property rights are not protected.

IPR is not only for people who develop software, it is also
for anybody who makes a living from writing stories, music,
books, etc. The fact that it was a Microsoft person who said that
IPR should be protected is non-issue. It is perfectly clear that
if Indonesia wants to join the global industry, which is now
dominated by India and increasingly also by China, more concrete
steps must be taken to protect IPR and fight piracy. Like anybody
else, software developers need to earn a living.

Improvement and realignment of our national education is
certainly a must. Along with so many writers and observers, I
have been complaining about the appalling inaction in this area,
which has resulted in our relatively low quality human resource.

As education is part of the overall system that keeps the
society rolling, we know that not much can be done as long as our
public sector is still plagued with corruption. Yet, some private
initiatives have shown very encouraging results. Certainly, one
of them is Bina Nusantara, which has now become a leading
educational institution in this country.

Education is a long-term investment. However, in the short
term, I also believe that there are short courses and training
programs that need to be provided. My own experience shows that
there has been an increasing demand for the ability to write in
good English and prepare business communications materials in
English, as the market should be global rather than local. I have
also noticed local companies need a lot of help in focusing their
product marketing campaigns. Some local companies have great
products to offer, but they just do not have the human resources
to create marketing materials that really put their great
products in the spotlight and generate interest among consumers.

Entrepreneurship needs to be supported in various ways, there
is no doubt about it. However, one of the most important things
is to train our local entrepreneurs to find niche markets rather
than become imitators or copiers. Competing with India and China,
for example, should not be an objective.

Particularly in the software industry, there are a lot of
opportunities that can be pursued. South Korea is known for their
online games, and certainly our developers can create online
gaming software for the Indonesian market. One of these days, we
will look at one of a pioneering online gaming Web sites in
Indonesia.

Self Auditing

Incidentally, Andrew also told to me that their recent civil
case against several computer sellers who had sold computers
bundled with pirated software seemed to have inspired a lot of
unscrupulous people to take advantage of its reverberations.
There have been cases that companies in Indonesia are visited by
people who claim to be representatives of Microsoft Indonesia and
make a wide range of offers, including special licenses that turn
out to be fake. Andrew is asking the public to guard themselves
against such crooks, who try to benefit from the fear of being
caught using pirated Microsoft software.

Andrew also gave me a copy of software utility that companies
can use to make sure that they do not have pirated software in
their workplace. Called Software Asset Management (SAM) Tool, it
helps a company's IT administrator check all the computers that
are connected to their LAN and see whether the users have
installed and used unlicensed software on their machines. It is a
tool that allows self-auditing to avoid legal and other piracy-
related problems.

At any rate, if we use a piece of software-regardless of
whether it is Microsoft's or not to increase our productivity and
enable us to make money, it is just fair that we pay for it. Once
we adhere to this principle, our software industry will have a
more fertile ground for growth.